The actor was 11 when his father was killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver.
Actor Tim Allen says he has finally been able to forgive the man who took his father’s life six decades ago after listening to the moving eulogy Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, delivered earlier this week.
During the conservative commentator’s memorial service in Glendale, Arizona, on Sept. 21, the mother of two expressed forgiveness for her husband’s killer, who shot the Turning Point USA founder while he was speaking to college students at an event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, has been charged with aggravated murder and felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, among other crimes. Prosecutors announced that they intend to seek the death penalty.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do,” Erika Kirk said in part during the memorial.
“The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love, and always love.”
On Thursday, Allen, 72, took to social media to share that he was greatly touched by her words.
“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,” the actor wrote on X.
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…
— Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) September 25, 2025
“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.”
Allen’s father, Gerald Dick, was killed in November 1964 in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.
The “Shifting Gears” star recounted the harrowing incident, as well as the lasting impact his father’s death has had on his life, during a 2006 appearance on “Inside the Actors Studio.”
“My dad had taken six kids and my mom to a Colorado football game,” Allen recalled.
“On the way home, in the middle of the afternoon, a guy swerved across [Interstate 70], went through that median in the middle, and landed on top of his side of the car and broke his neck, and he died in my mom’s lap right there.”
The actor, who was 11 when the accident occurred, said he would have been in the car that day had he not decided to spend time with a neighborhood friend.
“If you haven’t had a death in your family, I don’t suggest it, but it certainly changes every single thing in your whole [being], everything from your cells and DNA turns a different color,” Allen continued.
“Every single thing in my life changed. And … I’ve hated November since then.”
