It was a roller coaster of emotions last night for Jimmy Kimmel on his late night show. The host nearly broke down in tears while discussing the killing of Cecil the lion, the famed cat from the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.
Walter James Palmer, a Minnesota dentist, recently killed the 13-year-old black mane lion while on a hunt in Africa. It was here that he reportedly lured him from the park before wounding him with a bow and arrow. Nearly two days later, Palmer and his guides tracked down the animal, killed, beheaded and skinned him. They then attempted to destroy the GPS collar Cecil was wearing as part of an Oxford University study. This allowed the researchers to track the animal”s location and find out its fate.
Kimmel, in discussing this news, let Palmer have it.
“Is it that difficult for you to get an erection that you need to kill things? If that”s the case, they have a pill for that,” Kimmel says. “Just stay home and swallow it and you save yourself a lifetime of being the most hated man in America who never advertised Jell-o pudding on television.”
“I”m not against hunting,” the host continues. “But if you”re some a-hole dentist who wants a lion”s head over the fireplace in his man cave so his douchebag buddies can gather around it and drink scotch and tell him how awesome he is, that”s just vomitous.”
Palmer, who has been in hiding ever since word came out that he was the man behind the killing, released a statement regarding the events. In it he says he only realized later what he”d done.
“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt,” Palmer says in a statement. “I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”
Palmer is wanted in the killing of Cecil. His two Zimbabwean guides, Theo Bronchorst and Honest Trymore Ndlovu, have already been arrested and are facing poaching charges.