In light of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk being fatally shot at Utah Valley University while he was addressing a massive gathering, conspiracy theories and heated reactions have divided the Internet. Staunch MAGA supporter Laura Loomer was one such person to unload her charged thoughts about the harrowing incident on social media platform X.

Laura Loomer condemns TMZ’s alleged tone-deaf reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death

Sharing a clip of a TMZ livestream, the Donald Trump ally called out the entertainment-driven tabloid for a “disgusting” stunt that was allegedly caught on camera. She accused employees of the news outlet for “cheering 30 second before” Charlie Kirk’s death was declared on its livestream.

“They were happy to hear the news of Charlie Kirk’s death and can be heard clapping and cheering before passing the news to Harvey Levin, who was hosting the stream,” she added in her post. She hit it out against website founder Harvey Levin, who took centre stage during the live broadcast while reporting the Utah shooting on the show in a grave tone.

“@HarveyLevinTMZ needs to condemn this,” Loomer continued. “I have clipped the livestream before they try to delete it.” Noting that Charlie was a husband and a father and he was “murdered in cold blood,” she fumed against the “shameful and disgusting behaviour by TMZ.”

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TMZ addresses laughter heard in office – Not about Charlie Kirk assassination

Harvey Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere have since issued an apology. Taking to the official TMZ news website, the outlet said that the employees laughing at something else in the background as the leading TV producers were reporting the developments related to Kirk’s assassination.

It is evidently visible that Harvey was seriously involved in spreading the word on the right-wing activist’s death. However, around the same time, some people in a different part of the building were watching a car chase. “The people watching that car chase began laughing and clapping in reaction to what they were seeing, but we want to make it clear,” the story stated, “they were not cheering in response to the assassination.”

Nonetheless, the platform understood the gravity of the coincidence and the sentiment of tone-deafness linked to the office laughter, calling them out as “totally out of line.” The website went on to apologise to everyone who heard the cheers in the background while Harvey and Charles were right in the middle of “covering a tragic story.”

In a video shared online, Levin also spoke out on the issue, saying, “We were livestreaming all day during this tragedy when something happened in our office.” He addressed as he and Charles were reporting on the shooting incident, “some people in the back room, away from the news desk, who were watching a car chase. They were laughing and clapping, you could hear it out here.”

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Clarifying the issue, he affirmed that those particular people were not cheering on the news of Kirk’s death because if they were they wouldn’t have been working at TMZ. “That said, we acknowledge that it was horrible timing, and for that we are sorry,” Charles chimed in.

Both of them further acknowledged that the backlash was warranted as they even they could hear the noise as they were speaking on livestream. Charles also drew people’s attention to how he actually “walked off-camera” to find out what was happening, especially since the timing was “inappropriate.” He guaranteed viewers that they could verify the same by looking at the full livestream video.