New York, Oct 14 (IANS): After facing a serious backlash, including quips by Donald Trump Jr., for his silence on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, host Jimmy Kimmel has explained his earlier silence over the studio mogul on his show.

During an appearance on "Good Morning America", the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host shared the reason for his delayed response to the accusations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, reports variety.com.

When a journalist brought up Trump Jr.'s string of tweets calling Kimmel out for his silence, the comedian said: "He's an idiot, let's just start with that. This is an imbecile whose job seems to be tweeting, as far as I can tell. With that said, I do admire that he's very loyal to his father (US President Donald Trump)."

"First of all, the Harvey Weinstein thing, people like these false equivalences of, that somehow is equivalent to what happened is Las Vegas."

"I mean, Harvey Weinstein is not a friend of mine. I'm not in the movie business. And I'll add that that story came out, I think, moments before we went to tape on Thursday, and we didn't have a show on Friday," Kimmel added.

People are trying to "drag up - especially these gun nuts - are trying to … take any comedy bit I did out of context and use it as some kind of proof saying that I'm calling myself the moral conscience of America, which I most certainly never did and most certainly never would".

Kimmel, like other late-night hosts, addressed Weinstein on Monday.