Tim Allen shares response to Erika Kirk’s memorial speech
-AFP
Tim Allen has revealed that he has finally forgiven the drunk driver who killed his father in 1964, a decision inspired by Erika Kirk’s words at her late husband Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.
The Home Improvement actor, 72, shared in a post on X, that Erika’s message of forgiveness during her Sept. 21 eulogy in Glendale, Arizona, struck him deeply.
At the service, Erika said she forgave Tyler Robinson, the suspect charged in Charlie’s fatal shooting, because “the answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love.”
Allen wrote that her words moved him to confront the anger he had carried since age 11, when his father, real estate agent Gerald M. Dick, was killed by a drunk driver in a Colorado crash.
“When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband: ‘That man… that young man… I forgive him.’ That moment deeply affected me,” Allen shared.
“I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: ‘I forgive the man who killed my father.’ Peace be with you all.”
When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband: “That man… that young man… I forgive him.” That moment deeply affected me. I have struggled for over 60 years to forgive the man who killed my Dad. I will say those words now as I type: “ I forgive the man who…
Allen has spoken before about the trauma of losing his father, describing how it changed him “from the inside out” and left him with feelings of guilt for not being in the car at the time. Therapy later helped him process the grief.
Now, decades later, Allen says he has found peace through the same kind of forgiveness that Erika Kirk expressed at her husband’s funeral.