ABC/Randy Holmes(NEW YORK) — Jimmy Kimmel is explaining why he got involved in the national debate over health care legislation.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host, who is bringing his L.A.-based show to his home town of Brooklyn, New York, next week, tells Good Morning America‘s Amy Robach it was more about turning a bad situation — his newborn son’s heart defect that required multiple surgeries — into something positive.
“I thought about, ‘Well, what can I do or say that might potentially make some good out of this, maybe make me feel like this happened for a reason?'” Kimmel said in an exclusive sit-down.
Kimmel didn’t necessarily think he would find himself in such a partisan firestorm.
“I gave my thoughts on it and my feelings about it – and I just think it’s a subject that is very complicated and very partisan for whatever reason,” he said.
But in the end he said he was hoping to get people to think a little bit about where they were getting their ideas from.
“Maybe people might at least think about, you know, ‘Why am I against Obamacare? Is it because I’ve been told to be against it? Or – is it really a disaster as people keep yelling at me?'” he said.
After Kimmel spoke out he found himself on the receiving end of a lot of nasty social media comments. Of course Kimmel has used nasty social media comments as a source of humor regularly on his show in his segment were celebrities read “mean tweets” about themselves. So what does the host really think of Twitter?
“I hate it,” he said. “I mean, at the beginning it was fun, you get to see everybody’s jokes – but it’s become a cesspool – people really are monsters.”
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.
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