15 celebrities who got political in 2017
HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 26: Host Jimmy Kimmel speaks onstage during the 89th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 26, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Jimmy Kimmel
American healthcare found its unexpected spokespersons in Jimmy Kimmel. Like so many celebrities (and TV hosts), the late night talk show host discovered his voice post-Trump through deeply personal experiences aggravated by the current political climate.
When his newborn son was diagnosed with two rare congenital heart defects, Kimmel tearfully shared his experience and empathy for parents with similarly sick children. His heartache moved him to speak out against Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Health Care Act.
Later, with his son in his arms, Kimmel vented on Congress’s inability to quickly renew life-saving funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). When another tragic mass shooting took dozens of lives in his hometown of Las Vegas, Kimmel once again took to the airwaves, imploring viewers to contact their representatives and push for gun control. It is unlikely that Kimmel will shy away from using his monologue as a platform for change in 2018, fully aware that every line could lose him conservative viewers — and he doesn’t mind a bit.
LOS ANGELES, CA – JANUARY 21: Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus speaks onstage at the women’s march in Los Angeles on January 21, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
The record-breaking Emmy award winner was already a veteran of the Women’s March when she accepted her Screen Actors Guild award for her brilliant work on Veep. True to form, she continued the spirit of the march straight to the podium. “My father fled religious persecution in occupied France, and I’m an American patriot, and I love this country, and because I love this country I am horrified by its blemishes, and this immigrant ban is a blemish, and it is un-American,” she said. She went on to celebrate and express her solidarity with the diverse “storytellers” behind the camera. “We will fight for them,” Louis-Dreyfus told the audience.
Like Jimmy Kimmel, the actress also turned personal hardship into an opportunity to speak out in the midst of a healthcare debate that threatened to leave millions uninsured. Only a few days after winning her sixth Emmy, Louis-Dreyfus announced that she had breast cancer, urging her followers to fight for universal health care for women that don’t have insurance.