Tone-Deaf Charlie Kirk Comments Cost Resident Evil Actor Matt Gordon His Job

This is one of those stories that starts as an edgy internet bit and ends with very real job consequences. A theme park performer posted victory-lap videos about a polarizing figure, assumed he was untouchable overseas, and found out the hard way that HR exists everywhere.

What kicked this off

Matt Gordon, an actor and creator living in Japan, posted tone-deaf content about Charlie Kirk. We are talking clips of him dancing right after mentioning Kirk's death and calling it 'good news,' plus more of the same flavor. He had previously sounded pretty sure that working in another country meant he was safe from blowback. Update: he was not. Matt Gordon has been fired. An Oct 29, 2025 post on X from commentator Matt Forney flagged the update.

Who Gordon is and where he worked

Gordon was voicing Leon S. Kennedy from the Resident Evil franchise and performing for Universal Studios Japan in an interactive theme park experience. After his posts, a group of Japanese users took offense, organized, and pushed for consequences. The end result: Gordon lost the job.

How Gordon responded

On Instagram, Gordon said it went beyond being let go. According to him, some people started tracking his location. He also pulled in a handful of political references: a clip of JD Vance, the USA's Vice President, telling people to contact employers over bad behavior; a claim that Jimmy Kimmel's show was taken off-air after it supposedly hurt Donald Trump; and a montage of Charlie Kirk making racist and sexist remarks, which Gordon noted never seemed to cost Kirk anything.

Gordon framed his firing as part of a bigger free speech problem in America. He closed by invoking the First Amendment and arguing that, in theory, Kirk would have defended his right to criticize.

The wider ripple effect

Gordon is not the only person getting blowback for celebrating Charlie Kirk's death. In the immediate aftermath of Kirk's assassination, social media was flooded with memes and hot takes. JD Vance stepped in with a call for consequences, as covered by the BBC:

Call them out, and hell, call their employer. We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.

Since then, people across different fields have been suspended or outright sacked for posts or jokes about Kirk, and that wave of discipline has sparked protests from folks arguing this is a free speech issue. Even comics publishing got pulled into it when DC canceled the Red Hood series after writer Gretchen Felker-Martin made controversial posts about Kirk's death. She was fired as well. DC gave this statement to The Hollywood Reporter:

At DC Comics, we place the highest value on our creators and community and affirm the right to peaceful, individual expression of personal viewpoints. Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC's standards of conduct.

• Who has faced consequences so far: medical professionals, pilots, teachers, and more have been suspended or fired; DC canceled Red Hood and dismissed writer Gretchen Felker-Martin after her posts; protests have followed, with supporters framing these penalties as a free speech fight.

The bottom line

Weird case, strange collision of fandom work and political outrage. Gordon danced on a grave, thought distance would protect him, and found out the internet can shrink that distance to zero. Whether you see this as accountability or overreach probably comes down to your tolerance for punching down at the newly dead versus your belief that speech should not cost someone a livelihood. Where do you land on calling someone's employer over their posts?