Kristin Chenoweth says backlash to post expressing 'heartbreak' over Charlie Kirk assassination 'nearly broke' her

Actress and Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth has revealed that the public backlash she received after a post she made in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September "nearly broke" her.

The comment came in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter about her new role in the musical The Queen of Versailles. Chenoweth had responded to the last Instagram post from Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination, "I’m. So. Upset. Didn’t always agree but appreciated some perspectives. What a heartbreak."

Per the outlet, the comment received backlash from members of the LGBTQ+ community, which the outlet called a "sizable segment of her fan base." Chenoweth said in a later interview regarding the backlash, "I saw what happened [to Kirk] online with my own eyes, and I had a human moment of reflection. … It’s no secret that I’m an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community."

Chenoweth told the Hollywood Reporter regarding the controversy, "It was tough on me, but I’m not going to answer any questions about it because I dealt with it. It nearly broke me, and that’s all I’m going to say. You probably know my heart, so you probably know."

Her comments come after actress Jamie Lee Curtis claimed that her own appearing to talk about Kirk "in a very positive way" were "mistranslated." 

Curtis had previously said, "I mean, 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 to his faith. Even though I find what 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," per Fox News.

In an interview with Variety, Curtis said, "An excerpt of it mistranslated what I was saying as I wished him well — like I was talking about him in a very positive way, which I wasn’t; I was simply talking about his faith in God. And so it was a mistranslation, which is a pun, but not. In the binary world today, you cannot hold two ideas at the same time: I cannot be Jewish and totally believe in Israel’s right to exist and at the same time reject the destruction of Gaza. You can’t say that, because you get vilified for having a mind that says, ‘I can hold both those thoughts. I can be contradictory in that way.’"