{"id":361485,"date":"2025-09-12T06:49:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/361485\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:49:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:49:28","slug":"nfls-carolina-panthers-fire-employee-over-post-after-charlie-kirks-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/361485\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL’s Carolina Panthers Fire Employee Over Post After Charlie Kirk’s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Carolina Panthers fired one of their employees for a social media post made shortly after the death of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe views expressed by our employees are their own and do not represent those of the Carolina Panthers,\u201d the NFL franchise posted via X<\/a> on Thursday, September 11. \u201cWe do not condone violence of any kind. We are taking this matter very seriously and have accordingly addressed it with the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Charlotte Observer<\/a> reported the fired employee was Charlie Rock, a football communications coordinator for the Panthers.<\/p>\n

A few hours after Kirk was shot and killed during a speaking engagement<\/a> at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, September 10, Rock posted: \u201cWhy are yall sad? Your man said it was worth it \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The post referenced comments made by Kirk in 2023 when the political activist discussed his stance on gun rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,\u201d Kirk said at the time.<\/p>\n

Rock\u2019s post spread quickly on conservative-leaning social media platforms, including the popular Mostly Peaceful Memes account on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHey @Panthers I hear this one of your employees in the Comms Department celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk,\u201d the account wrote early Thursday morning. \u201cIs this consistent with your organization\u2019s values and policies?\u201d<\/p>\n

The team parted ways with Rock just hours later, according to the Observer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Us Weekly has reached out to the Carolina Panthers for comment. Rock\u2019s Instagram profile has since been deleted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rock was an intern for the Panthers\u2019 communications department in 2024 and had recently been promoted to a full-time job in the same department, per the Observer. His LinkedIn account has also been deactivated since being terminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Related: Josh Duhamel, Jessie James Decker and More Mourn Charlie Kirk\u2018s Death at 31 <\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHollywood stars are speaking out to mourn the death of controversial conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. News broke on Wednesday, September 10, that Kirk was shot and killed during a\u00a0 speaking engagement in Utah. He was 31. \u201cThe Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,\u201d President Donald Trump wrote via his Truth Social platform. \u201cNo [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n

Rock\u2019s firing mirrored that of MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd, who was let go by the network after making on-air comments about Kirk<\/a> on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tThank You!<\/p>\n

You have successfully subscribed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups,\u201d Dowd, 64, said during the network\u2019s breaking news coverage of Kirk\u2019s shooting. \u201cAnd I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dowd continued, \u201cYou can\u2019t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that\u2019s the unfortunate environment we are in.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler issued an apology<\/a> for Dowd\u2019s comments on Wednesday, calling them \u201cinappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Panthers fired one of their employees for a social media post made shortly after the death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[235,260,2567,8071,439,12289,441,442,7,6,236],"class_list":{"0":"post-361485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-carolina","9":"tag-carolina-panthers","10":"tag-carolinapanthers","11":"tag-celebrity-deaths","12":"tag-celebrity-news","13":"tag-celebrity-scandals","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-entertainment-news","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115189996958676996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}