How did Tim Allen’s father die? Actor inspired by Charlie Kirk’s widow to forgive killer

Tim Allen, 72, the actor best known for voicing Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, lost his father when he was just 11-years-old. But 60 years after his father’s death, Tim has forgiven the killer. The actor wrote to X: “When Erika Kirk spoke the words on the man who killed her husband [Charlie Kirk]: ‘That man…that young man…I forgive him.’ That moment deeply affected me.” Tim continued: “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.'”

Tim’s dad, Gerald Dick, died in November 1964. While traveling home from a Colorado football game with his six children – not including Tim – a drunk driver collided with the car. Tim shared during a 2006 interview on Inside the Actors Studio that the driver “swerved across the I-70,” went through a median, and demanded on top of the car.

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After the accident, Gerald died in Tim’s mom’s lap. “As many times as I’d relive this — if you haven’t had a death in your family, and I don’t suggest it — it certainly, it changes everything from your cells and DNA turns a different color,” he told the host. “Every single thing in my life changed. I knew it the moment he was dead, and it was not for four hours that I found out. I’ve hated November since then.”

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He continued: “It was a startling event that took me, it’s made me everything that I am, which I hate to admit. It’s also made me very different, I felt, than my neighbors forever.” The Home Improvement actor’s move to forgiveness comes years after “pain” and “discomfort.”

Who is Erika Kirk?

Tim was moved to forgive the man responsible for his father’s death after Erika Kirk – Charlie Kirk’s widow – forgave her husband’s shooter who was fatally shot at Utah Valley University during a Turning Point USA event on September 10. Kirk was 31 when he died. After days of searching for the suspect, the police arrested Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, and accused him of killing Kirk.

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A memorial for Kirk was held on September 21 in Arizona. Several politicians, like President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, spoke at the memorial. But what inspired Tim was Erika’s speech. “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life,” Erika said. “Our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.’ That young man … I forgive him.”

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Erika continued: “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”