Kimmel tones down feud with Hannity with apology

Amid feud with Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, comedian Jimmy Kimmel has apologised for his joke on United States First Lady Melania Trump.

On Sunday, Kimmel issued a statement on Twitter, saying that his exchanges with Hannity were fun but that he had realised that "the level of vitriol from all sides (mine and me included) does nothing good for anyone and, in fact, is harmful to our country."

"I will take Sean Hannity at his word that he was genuinely offended by what I believed and still believe to be a harmless and silly aside referencing our First Lady's accent," the 50-year-old wrote.

"Mrs Trump almost certainly has enough to worry about without being used as a prop to increase TV ratings."

"By lampooning Sean Hannity's deference to the President, I most certainly did not intend to belittle or upset members of the gay community and to those who took offense, I apologise."

"I am hopeful that Sean Hannity will learn from this too and continue his newly-found advocacy for women, immigrants and First Ladies and that he will triumph in his heroic battle against sexual harassment and perversion," read his statement.

In an episode of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!,' the late-night host had joked about Melania Trump's Slovenian accent, which apparently didn't go down too well with Hannity.

What followed was a war of words on their respective shows as well as on Twitter.

On Saturday, Hannity had tweeted that he was not going to stop until Kimmel apologised to the First Lady.