KIMMEL APOLOGY FLOPS

Sincerity lost when lecture’s attached

Jimmy Kimmel should save his fake apologies and get back to doing what he gets paid to do — be funny.

On Sunday, the comedian tweeted an apology to conservative TV host Sean Hannity after making crude remarks that Hannity has sex with President Donald Trump.

The Twitter spat started Friday when Kimmel made jokes about first lady Melania Trump’s accent and Hannity came to her defense. The Twitter fight escalated into Kimmel tweeting, “Don’t worry — just keep tweeting — you’ll get back on top! (or does Trump prefer you on bottom?),” he wrote. This infuriated the gay community, which is the real reason he said “sorry” to Hannity.

Apparently his mother never taught him the basic rule: When you are apologizing, you ask for nothing in return besides forgiveness.

Kimmel tweeted, “While I admit I did have fun with our back and forth, after some thought, I realize that the level of vitriol from all sides (mine and me included) does nothing good for anyone and, in fact, is harmful to our country,” he wrote. “I most certainly did not intend to belittle or upset members of the gay community and to those who took offense, I apologize.”

If the statement ended there, one could argue it was genuine, but when you start lecturing the person you have offended, your words mean nothing.

Kimmel finished his statement by saying, “I am hopeful that Sean Hannity will learn from this too and continue his newly-found advocacy for women, immigrants and First Ladies and that he will triumph in his heroic battle against sexual harassment and perversion.”

Why bother drafting this statement on a Sunday?

Ultimately, the only people Kimmel is worried he upset were the gay community for making a homophobic joke. He should have just left Hannity out of the tweet and appealed to the people he actually cares about hurting — gay individuals who still think his show is funny. Also he should be trying to stop the petition to boycott him, which has close to 200,000 signatures.

If he really thought this would end the feud, the latenight host needs a lesson in communication. You can’t try and rise above the negativity when you’re needling the person you sparred with online.

Kimmel, you just got bucked off your moral high horse.