Jamie Lee Curtis stifled tears while discussing the death of Charlie Kirk

Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis recently made an appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast and got emotional when speaking about Charlie Kirk, the conservative political commentator who was assassinated last week during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University.

The podcast episode, which aired on Monday, was filmed two days after the September 10 shooting. And, in it, Curtis, who's no stranger to controversy, mentioned that she wanted to discuss the incident because it was "top of mind."

When Curtis begins talking about Kirk, she mistakenly calls him "Charlie Crist," and goes on to explain that the slipup was likely due to his "deep, deep belief" in God — seeming to draw a comparison between the divisive founder of Turning Point USA and Jesus Christ. As she keeps speaking about Kirk's legacy, she grows increasingly emotional, sounding as if she's choking back tears.

"I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say, but I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died that he felt connected with his faith," Curtis says. "Even though...his ideas were abhorrent to me, I still believe he's a father and a husband and a man of faith, and I hope whatever connection to God means that he felt it."

Noting that the day before was 9/11, the actress continues, "I know there is video of his assassination. I know people who've seen it. Yesterday, we watched again these images of those buildings coming down [on 9/11]. We as a society are bombarded with imagery, so we don't know what the longitudinal effects of seeing those towers come down over and over and over and over again, or watching his execution over and over and over again, [are]."

After saying that she never wants to see the footage of Kirk being shot, Curtis ends her thoughts on the conservative activist by suggesting that, maybe, the long-term effect of seeing a constant stream of violent images is that society has grown numb to them. "Is that the reason why we're all feeling this lack of humanity, because we're just saturated with these images?" she asks.

On social media, people quickly took issue with Curtis' comments about Kirk, who used religious rhetoric to further far-right ideologies, diminish those who disagreed with his views, and even incite violence against racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. In response to a post sharing the podcast interview, one X user responded with "I actually wanna hear where they were in agreement" and called for Curtis, Selma Blair, and Kristin Chenoweth to "say publicly where they aligned with Charlie Kirk."

After the shooting, Blair received backlash for replying to one of Kirk's recent Instagram posts by calling him an "incredible man." And Chenoweth caught flack last week after she left a comment on his final post on the platform, describing how she was "so upset" by the news. As part of her message, the Wicked star also said that her heart breaks for his young family and that she "didn't always agree but appreciated some perspectives" and knows that he is in heaven.