White House Calls Mark Hamill 'One Sick Individual' Over AI Image of Trump in Grave

The White House called Star Wars actor Mark Hamill "one sick individual" after he posted an AI-generated image of US President Donald Trump lying in a shallow grave, captioned "if only."

The image on Hamill's Bluesky account depicted Trump with eyes shut next to a headstone reading "Donald J. Trump 1946-2024." Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars films starting in 1977, later deleted the post and apologized. "Actually, I was wishing him the opposite of dead, but apologize if you found the image inappropriate," he wrote.

BBC News sought comment from the actor's representatives on the White House remarks.

In the now-deleted Bluesky post, Hamill—who has voiced the Joker in DC Comics projects—said Trump "should live long enough to witness his inevitable devastating loss in the midterms, be held accountable for his unprecedented corruption, impeached, convicted & humiliated for his countless crimes. Long enough to realize he'll be disgraced in the history books, forevermore."

"This kind of rhetoric is exactly what has inspired three assassination attempts in two years against our President,"

the White House said.

Last month, a man fired a shotgun outside the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington in what authorities called an assassination attempt on Trump.

After that shooting, Melania Trump and other US officials called for ABC to fire comedian Jimmy Kimmel. He had joked on air in a parody sketch days earlier that the first lady had a "glow like an expectant widow."

Mrs. Trump said Kimmel's "hateful and violent rhetoric" aimed to divide the US. "It is time for ABC to take a stand,"

she added.

Kimmel rejected the criticism, calling his joke a reference to the couple's 24-year age gap. "I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,"

he said later on air. "I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it."