{"id":404347,"date":"2024-01-12T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=404347"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Aaron-Rodgers-denies-implying-Jimmy-Kimmel-tied-to-Epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Aaron-Rodgers-denies-implying-Jimmy-Kimmel-tied-to-Epstein\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Rodgers denies implying Jimmy Kimmel tied to Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK<\/strong> (AP)\u2014New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers denied he implied comic Jimmy Kimmel was a pedophile and condemned those who do, but he stopped short of apologizing for his role in escalating their burgeoning feud.<\/p>\n

Rodgers returned to ESPN\u2019s \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show\u201d on Tuesday for his weekly appearance and addressed comments he made the week before that appeared to suggest Kimmel\u2019s name might appear on a list of associates of Jeffrey Epstein, a millionaire accused of sex trafficking involving underage victims before he died by suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny type of name calling is ridiculous and I\u2019m not calling him (a pedophile), and neither should you,\u201d Rodgers said on the show Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The feud between ABC\u2019s late-night star and Rodgers, who regularly appears on the daily ESPN show, has proven embarrassing for The Walt Disney Co., the parent company to both television networks.<\/p>\n

Rodgers criticized Mike Foss, an ESPN executive who oversees McAfee\u2019s show, for saying that Rodgers had made \u201ca dumb and factually inaccurate joke\u201d about Kimmel.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike, you\u2019re not helping,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cYou\u2019re not helping because I just read earlier exactly what I said. This is the game plan of the media and this is what they do: They try to cancel, you know, and it\u2019s not just me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodgers last week said a lot of people, \u201cincluding Jimmy Kimmel,\u201d are really hoping that a list of Epstein\u2019s associates doesn\u2019t come out publicly. Kimmel, who has denied any association with Epstein, threatened Rodgers with a lawsuit for the comment and said the NFL star was putting his family in danger.<\/p>\n

Rodgers suggested that people were reading too much into what he said, that he was not stupid enough to accuse Kimmel of being a pedophile.<\/p>\n

Kimmel made the first appearance of the year Monday on his late-night show and laced into Rodgers. He said he would accept an apology from Rodgers but didn\u2019t expect one.<\/p>\n

\u201cA decent person would apologize,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cBut he probably won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel called Rodgers \u201chamster-brained\u201d and said that he got two A\u2019s on his report card\u2014\u201dthey\u2019re both in the name Aaron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be time to revisit that concussion profile, Aaron,\u201d Kimmel said.<\/p>\n

Before addressing his specific comments, Rodgers had a lengthy preamble about his grudges against Kimmel, including jokes the comic has made about the quarterback\u2019s anti-COVID-19 vaccination comments.<\/p>\n

Even after that, he said he didn\u2019t care what Kimmel said about him, \u201cbut as long as he understands what I actually said and that I\u2019m not accusing him of being on a list … I\u2019m all for moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Aaron Rodgers<\/p>\n

-Jordan Strauss, left, and Jacob Kupferman
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Jimmy Kimmel<\/p>\n

-Jordan Strauss, left, and Jacob Kupferman
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP)\u2014New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers denied he implied comic Jimmy Kimmel was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}