'King of the Hill' Voice Actor Jonathan Joss Fatally Shot in Texas

Ken Hotate!

They killed Ken Hotate .... the fuck is going on with the US

This is so freaking sad ... I'm Indigenous in Canada and I loved seeing his character in Parks and Recreation.

I just browsed through this Facebook page and just this past February he proudly announced and showed pictures of marrying his gay partner.

Jonathan Joss was Two Spirited and he was just starting to project that in public ... it's so sad because now it makes me wonder what role all that identity played in his killing.

Fuck America ... you can be so beautiful and great while being so terrible and ugly at the same time.

I used to provide rural healthcare to the tribal nations here in Oklahoma. I was always blown away to hear just how many of my patients had lost loved ones to violence, and how many of the murders went unsolved.
I had a patient whose son was a tribal advocate who was protesting a case in Colorado and went missing. Their other son went up to get the police to do their jobs and ended up being murdered, both cases unsolved.
The endemic violence towards the native people of America has not stopped and has continued since before the founding of this country.
- I also would be 100% unsurprised if the police were the murderers.
- Years ago, it was the same here in Canada. 30/40 years ago it was all just listed as 'drunk indian was killed' and the excuse was often just a brawl, accident, unfortunate event caused by alcohol abuse. These days it's not so prevalent or obvious .... fewer people being killed ... but more being beaten, abused or taken advantage of. Hotels/Motels in northern towns often have 'Indian sections' in them where native people are booked to keep them relegated and controlled, even if you are a clean cut Native person with a family and children.
It was 100% a hate crime and played every role, context: https://bsky.app/profile/willharrisinva.bsky.social/post/3lqnh5lqoz223
Ken Hotate
https://youtu.be/i9G2wv2XsKA?t=340
- Fuck .... this makes me laugh and cry at the same time ... I really, really, really wish they had done more with his character or even built an entire series with him. So much lost talent it's frustrating.
- There are two things I know about white people: they love Matchbox 20 and they are terrified of curses.
Hotate was one of my favorite characters. I loved his relationship with Leslee.
you can be so beautiful and great while being so terrible and ugly at the same time.
I find this applies to humanity in general as well.
Wtf, I saw the thumbnail and thought "that guy looks just like Ken Hotate", and here is your comment right there.
Damn that's a blow, lost a real character in the world...
I am so sad. I love Ken even more than Rachel Ray, and I’m white!
I wouldn't judge a country by who gets killed in it. Look up Tina Fontaine. I mean,every place in the world can be beautiful and ugly at the same time if you judge by what individual people in it do.
- America has allowed this kind of shit to happen for centuries.
  It's openly endorsed it in the past, and is now doing so again.
  Yeah, I will fucking judge the country by these actions. They come from the top.
FTFY
- If you can’t find any beauty in what America has accomplished in 250 years, you’re being willfully ignorant. This country is in a desperately fucked up state right now, and it’s been even worse throughout history, but to pretend that the only version of America that exists is when we are at our very worst is just intellectually dishonest.

More, horrifying context: https://bsky.app/profile/willharrisinva.bsky.social/post/3lqnh5lqoz223

Holy fucking shit this context should be on every news outlet
- Yeah I just went looking for other reactions on Bluesky as this was shocking and really bothersome, but that was without the context. With it, it’s 10x worse.
  I shouldn’t have had to dig replies deep into a different article to find this, shows what an insane chilling effect this current political climate has. This was 100% a hate crime and a targeted harassment campaign, and it’s not even mentioned.
Well that's absolutely horrible.
Arson, killing and displaying dogs, then murder all because you're afraid of gay people.
- Didn't you know that you can catch 'the gay' just by being in the same vicinity?
  A workmate of mine is gay and I can't be in the same room as him...and his chiselled jaw! And his toned hunky physique without feeling all giddy inside. He's obviously using his gay magic on me!!!
  I wonder what he's doing right now? Do you think he's thinking about me?
  Anyways, yeah, gay magic is contagious!!
Fucking hell. And some people say 'we don't need pride any more'. We need it now more than ever
I'm American and I will never go to Texas.
Summary for non account holders?
- I could read it without an account.
  ::: spoiler Slide 1
  ::: ::: spoiler Slide 2
  :::
- When we returned to the site to check the mail, we discovered the skull of one of our dogs and it's harness placed in clear view.
  Nope. Nope. Nope. I quit reading there. Homophobia, arson, and that in a paragraph.

Murdered. He was murdered by someone committing a hate crime. Get it right.

Yes. On the first day of pride. It is rather telling that the articles I’ve seen all left out the homophobic slurs right before the murder.
- They’re either owned or cowards. Pathetic either way.
Murdered by a homophobic piece of absolute scum of the earth shit.
I hope they throw the book at him, but I know how America is right now, he will probably be working in the government by next week.
It was a terrorist attack, but you'l never hear the media call this guy a terrorist.
The terrorist's goal was to let the neighborhood know that if you aren't straight and cis, you aren't welcome.

He voiced John Redcorn for those who don't want to click through to TMZ:

Joss was the voice of John Redcorn in "King of the Hill." He also landed a big part in "Parks and Recreation" as Chief Ken Hotate. And he had small roles in TV shows such as "Tulsa King," "Ray Donovan," and films like "True Grit" and "The Magnificent Seven."

Damn! Fucking America with every lunatic having access to guns.

RIP Jonathan Joss

Dang, and his house just caught fire too:

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2025/01/23/jonathan-joss-king-of-the-hills-john-redcorn-loses-house-dogs-in-fire-in-san-antonio/

Too many of the show’s VAs met an untimely end.

Joss told KSAT he had issues with electricity after the home was vandalized. He had been staying in a hotel to keep warm.
“Mistakes happen, man. And it’s my fault for, I guess, leaving something on,” Joss said. “Or if somebody came in and did something, who knows?”
House vandalized, then burned down, then shot dead... feels like a pattern of someone desperate to get him off the property. ~~No way this is coincidence.~~
Edit- I shouldn't have stated last line without evidence, of course it's possible this is an isolated series of most unfortunate events.
- Im not saying it's not something more sinister, but this can 100% be a coincidence.
  Home is vandalized and copper is stolen, leading to electrical problems. He comes home, either leaves the propane stove on by accident, leaves the gas tank on by accident, leaves a bad circuit on by accident, someone comes in and does something, or just random coincidence that that's when an electrical fire starts.
  Flash forward 6 months and he's probably still crushingly low, gets into an argument with his neighbour that gets hotter than it would've if he was feeling better and he's in dumb fuck America so everyone has a point and click murder tool in their waist band and gets killed rather than punched.
  We don't even know if they were the same houses.
- Nope, you were right: https://bsky.app/profile/willharrisinva.bsky.social/post/3lqnh5lqoz223
- I read they had received arson threats. Their dog died in the fire. Then the dog's skull and harness were displayed like a trophy in front of the house.
  It was premeditated, hate crime arson.
- It turns out that's likely the case, at least going by the surviving husband's public statement.

JFC. Damnit. Fuck Texas.

Edit: Jonathan's widower has provided a statement. He was murdered for being gay. Fuck. Texas.

My buds and I met him at a local comic con. He told us he'd meet us out back and hang with us if we bought him a beer. So, we went and got beers and met up with him. Got selfies with him and a video of us all doing the "yep" thing with our beers. Super fun guy.

This happened kind of close to where my partner and I live. The general sentiment from a lot of people in the area has been getting worse and worse. I know some folks have always felt that way, but it’s so brazen now. We’re always scared when we have to leave the house. There’s been violence.

King of the Hill is one of our favorite shows, it’s all hitting us pretty hard. Both that someone we admired the work of was killed in such a horrible way, and that it happened so close to home.

Remember, the only good Republican is a dead Republican.
- Dead potentially meaning left the party and stopped voting for them... right?

Another article for those having issues with the TMZ site:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jonathan-joss-fatally-shot-1.7550346

I was looking at the Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Joss

On January 23, 2025, Joss lost his San Antonio home, as well as three dogs (with a fourth missing) when his house caught fire.[8][9] Joss says he was using a propane heater and had left the house. “Mistakes happen, man. And it’s my fault for, I guess, leaving something on,” Joss said. “Or if somebody came in and did something, who knows?” [8] He attended the 2025 ATX TV Festival in Austin, Texas with other King of the Hill cast members on May 29, 2025.[7] However, he says he was not invited to the panel, and an attendee on the social media site Reddit says that Joss interrupted the King of the Hill panel, bringing up his house burning down which he felt was intentionally burned down because of his homosexuality.

On June 1, 2025, Joss was approached by a neighbor who allegedly yelled homophobic slurs at Joss before shooting and killing him. The suspect was arrested shortly afterward.[7][10][11][12] The two neighbors have been subject to a longstanding feud going back years with police being called multiple times.[13] His death occurred just hours after he uploaded an Instagram video of himself walking around Austin and noting how he already recorded lines for 4 King of the Hill episodes.

Kern de Gonzales stated on Instagram afterwards that various people in the area had for years verbally assaulted them with homophobic slurs and threats to burn down their home.[14] Kern de Gonzales went on to say that the house had burned down after years of threats from their neighbors, threats to which the police had not responded, even after the threats had been reported by Gonzales and Joss.[11] On Joss' Facebook page, Kern de Gonzales described the attack as a homophobic hate crime.

San Antonio Police Department released a statement saying "Our investigation has found no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the Mr. Joss's murder was related to his sexual orientation."

I always find it baffling when people do about like this. There's no thought behind it, no plan, no exit strategy - they just get angry and do something stupid, and it's just par for the course for humanity. It's amazing we ever made it past the stone age.

As if I needed another reason to never set foot in Texas, fuck man

RIP John Redcorn

Fuck owning guns and fuck owning guns for personal protection.

Handguns are the dumbest fucking thing in the world for society to allow. Lets make killing someone as easy as pressing a button at a distance! That's gotta a be a good necessary thing for anyone to do on a whim.

At a time when our government is increasingly fascist and it's clear they want to eliminate classes of people, I'm thinking the wrong people have been buying the guns.
- Armed people cannot defend themselves against the logistics of any organised force.
  What people with guns can do against fascism is hide & covertly attack guerrilla/terrorist style so that the confrontation doesn't allow oppressing force to use it's force/time/reach/etc.
  I do not mean that as a bad or un-heroic thing, just as the last resort of protest.
  But this situation would not turn out any better had there been more guns involved. Only in case of 0 guns the situation might have been better.
- Oh yeah, good luck fighting the army with your handguns.
I 100% agree we need way more restrictions when it comes to firearms, but it is absolutely necessary for people to have a firearm for their own protection. I personally know activists, especially LGBT rights activists, who's life depended on that side holster of theirs and are still here to this day because of it.
- Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand would all show that what you're saying is false.
  This argument is nonsense pushed forward by the gun industry to try and get leftists on their side. Allowing for activists to freely own handguns means that counter activists will which makes everyone less safe.
People over estimate how cool and collected they are.
The other day some asshole was letting his dog shit on the sidewalk and not picking it up. I saw. He saw me see. We made eye contact. He called me a coward and walked away.
In that moment I was emotionally ready to murder him. Just put his smug ass on the ground with his dog shit. Luckily, I don't carry a gun so I just yelled at him. But if I had a gun on me? No way the scene would have gone better.
- In that moment I was emotionally ready to murder him.
  This says more about you specifically than it does the entire population.
  I've carried a gun for almost 10 years, and in that time I've had all kinds of interactions from people calling me mean names, people cutting me off, actual bad accidents caused by dumbassery on their part, a guy pulling a knife who decided to leave before getting shot, and everything in between, I've never wanted to kill anyone. There were a few times I was scared I might have to, like the guy pulling the knife, but I've always been relieved it hasn't had to happen. You should not own a gun if someone calling you a mean name is enough to send you into a murderous rage, but not everyone is like you.
- There's a pretty big gulf between yelling at someone and shooting them... Had you considered non life-threatening physical force? Or do you always go right to murder
- Counterpoint:
  Maybe it would have.

I thought I just read about King of the Hill. https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/37633255

Yep, this is a sad shame, but if he returns in this reboot season all of his lines have likely been recorded already.

Sometimes I wonder if the so called the 'arc of the moral universe' could turn out like Fukuyama's concept of The End of History. Maybe we are the barbarian back water planet.

Dang, King of the Hill cast had so many deaths (or is just we getting old and this is a normal proportion?).

Brittany Murphy, Johnny Hardwick, Jonathan Joss, Tom Petty, ...

kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Deceased_Actors :|

The Texas Oblast and their stand your ground BS.

This wasn't "stand your ground" it was targeted harassment, animal abuse, and hate crime.

I wonder how this is going to affect the reboot. Are they going to write out John Redcorn, or hire a new voice actor? He's in the intro so I imagine they planned on him returning to the show.

I'd image they would be recorded by now, most animation takes a long time. Plus about half the lines for dale we're recorded before he was recast.
- They recast Dale? Why?

Holy shit, I don't know what's on that website but even with an adblocker it pegged my CPU until I closed it.

TMZ. I already know the website is shit before clicking anything.