On Monday, Aaron Rodgers had a chance to talk about his situation with Jimmy Kimmel during an end-of-season press conference with reporters. Rodgers decided to wait to address the situation until Tuesday’s scheduled appearance with Pat McAfee.
Kimmel opted not to wait.
On his ABC late-night show, Kimmel opened by addressing the situation. Here’s the full segment.
“Did you hear this story about me and Aaron Rodgers, the former quarterback for the Packers?” Kimmel said. “All right, so, what happened is he’s a Jets quarterback now. He went on a show on ESPN, The Pat McAfee Show, and out of the blue insinuated that I was nervous because the Jeffrey Epstein list was coming out. He said I was hoping it wouldn’t, and that he was going to pop a bottle of something to celebrate when he did. And then it did come out and of course my name wasn’t on it and isn’t on it and won’t ever be on — I don’t know Jeffrey Epstein, I’ve never met Jeffrey Epstein, I’m not on the list, I wasn’t on a plane or an island or anything ever and I suggested that if Aaron wanted to make false and very damaging statements like that that we should do it in court so he could share his proof with like a judge. Because, you know, when you hear a guy who won a Super Bowl and did all the State Farm commercials say something like this, a lot of people believe it. . . .
“And I know this because I hear from these people often. My wife hears from them. My kids hear from them. My poor mailman hears from these people. And now we’re hearing from lots more of them, thanks to Aaron Rodgers, who I guess believes one of two things. Either he actually believes my name was gonna be on Epstein’s list, which is insane. Or the more likely scenario is he doesn’t actually believe that, he just said it because he’s mad at me for making fun of his top knot and his lies about being vaccinated. He’s particularly upset I think because I made fun of the fact that he floated this wacko idea that the UFO sightings that were in the news in February were being reported to distract us from the Epstein list. That was Aaron’s theory that he said, and I mocked [him].”
Kimmel then showed the clip from when he poked fun at Rodgers’s claim for February.
“So he saw that and maybe to retaliate, he decided to insinuate that I am a pedophile,” Kimmel said. “This is how these nuts do it now. You don’t like Trump, you’re a pedophile. It’s their go-to move, and it shows you how much they actually care about pedophilia.
“But here’s the thing, I spent years doing sports. I’ve seen guys like him before. Aaron Rodgers has a very high opinion of himself. Because he had success on a football field, he believes himself to be an extraordinary being. He genuinely thinks that because God gave him the ability to throw a ball, he’s smarter than everybody else. The idea that his brain is just average is unfathomable to him. We learned during COVID somehow he knows more about science than scientists.
“A guy who went to community college, then got into Cal on a football scholarship, and didn’t graduate. Someone who never spent a minute studying the human body is an expert in the field of immunology. He just put on a magic helmet and that ‘G’ made him a genius. Aaron got two As on his report card. They were both in the word Aaron, OK? And can you imagine that this hamster-brained man knows what the government is up to because he’s a quarterback doing research on YouTube and listening to podcasts?
“I looked it up. This is actually a thing. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. In other words, Aaron Rodgers is too arrogant to know how ignorant he is. They let him host Jeopardy! for two weeks. Now he knows everything.
“And by the way, I’m not one of those people that thinks athletes and members of the sports media should stick to talking about sports. I think Aaron Rodgers has the right to express any opinion he wants. But saying someone is a pedophile isn’t an opinion nor is it trash talk, sorry Pat McAfee.
“And as far as the ‘well, you say things about people all the time’ argument goes, yes, I do. It’s not the same. It’s not even close to the same. We don’t make up lies. In fact, we have a team of people who work very hard to work to sift through facts and reputable sources before I make a joke, and that’s an important distinction. A joke about someone. Even when that someone is Donald Trump. Even a person who lies from the minute he wakes up until the minute he’s smearing orange makeup on his My Pillow at night, even he deserves that consideration. And we give it to him, because the truth still matters.
“And when I do get something wrong, which happens on rare occasions, you know what I do? I apologize for it. Which is what Aaron Rodgers should do. Which is what a decent person would do. But I bet he won’t. If he does, you know what I’ll do, I’ll accept his apology and move on. But he probably won’t do that.”
We’ll find out on Tuesday whether Rodgers apologizes. Like Kimmel, I bet he won’t. He’ll mince words and play the victim card and blame the “woke mob” for twisting his words and targeting him because of his conspiracy theories about anything and everything.
Rodgers, I predict, will say he never actually said Kimmel is on the list. But Rodgers clearly implied it — and then remained silent for a full week after the fuse he deliberately lit hit the bomb, creating a mess for ESPN, ABC, and McAfee.
In the end, it won’t be Aaron’s fault. Nothing is ever his fault. And he’ll surely spend plenty of time on Tuesday explaining why this one isn’t his fault, either.
