Topline
Actor Jack Black has said his two-person band, Tenacious D, will make a comeback when the time is right after he canceled the remainder of a world tour following an off-color joke made on stage about the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump last month.
Jack Black attends the “Borderlands” premiere at TCL Chinese Theatre on Aug. 6, 2024.
Key Facts
At the premiere for the movie “Borderlands” Tuesday night, Black told Variety he and bandmate Kyle Glass needed to “take a break” after the comment, but said they are still friends and will “be back when it feels right.”
Glass was blowing out birthday candles on stage during a tour stop in Sydney, Australia on July 14, the day after a man fired gunshots at Trump during a campaign rally, when he was asked to make a wish.
He replied “Don’t miss Trump next time,” a reference to the assassination attempt.
The band canceled its remaining 10 sold-out stops and “all future creative plans” after the comment and Black said he would “never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”
Australian senator Ralph Babet called for Black and Glass to have their visas revoked and for the pair to be kicked out of the country over the joke, and said “Anything less than a deportation is an endorsement of the shooting and the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump.”
Glass subsequently apologized for the remark, calling it “highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake.”
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Key Background
Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania when several shots were fired from hundreds of yards away. The FBI later identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as the gunman. A bullet grazed the former president’s ear before he was ushered off stage by Secret Service, and he was quickly released from a nearby hospital after an evaluation. Several other people at the rally were shot and one was killed. Authorities have still not identified a movie in the attack. Prior to the assassination attempt, Black was a vocal supporter of President Joe Biden’s campaign for president and was a featured speaker at a Biden fundraiser in Los Angeles, during which he told the audience “democracy is at stake.”
Further Reading
Mary Roeloffs is a Forbes reporter who covers breaking news with a frequent focus on the entertainment industry, streaming, sports news, publishing, pop culture and climate change. She joined Forbes in 2023 and lives in Dallas. She’s covered Netflix’s hottest documentaries, a surge of assaults reported on social media, the most popular books of the year and how climate change stands to impact the way we eat. Roeloffs was included on Editor & Publisher Magazine’s “ 25 Under 30” list in 2023 and worked covering local news in the greater Boston area from 2017 to 2023. She graduated with a double major in political science and journalism from Northeastern University. Follow Roeloffs for continued coverage of streaming wars, pop culture news and trending topics.
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