Morrissey, Jimmy Kimmel trade barbs over Duck Dynasty (VIDEO)

You can bet the Robertson family of “Duck Dynasty” fame had no idea who Morrissey was until Tuesday after their appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show.

Kimmel was forced into some last-minute shuffling when Morrissey, the British rock icon and former frontman of The Smiths, backed out of his appearance.

He said that he couldn’t possibly appear during a show alongside the Duck Dynasty cast, whom he called “animal serial killers.”

“As far as my reputation is concerned, I can’t take the risk of being on a show alongside people who, in effect, amount to animal serial killers,” an official statement from Morrissey said. “If Jimmy cannot dump Duck Dynasty then we must step away.”

Morrissey has long championed animal rights and has been a staunch vegetarian since his youth.
He called an early Smiths album and song “Meat is Murder.”

Kimmel offered to have Morrissey tape his performance early, but the singer said no.

So, Kimmel used the controversy for some zingers, saying his couldn’t cancel Duck Dynasty because “they have guns and Morrissey doesn’t,” adding Morrissey keeps finding new ways “to depress us.”

His show also featured Duck Dynasty cast members in parody skits for “carrot calls” and “broccoli traps.”

That didn’t sit well with “Moz,” who issued another statement after the show.

“I was disappointed with last night's Jimmy Kimmel Show wherein our smiling host managed to ridicule depression (70 percent of Americans have experienced depression according to the National Institute of Mental Health). He then found time to ridicule healthy eating (the obesity epidemic in the US costs $147 billion per year in medical expenditure), and he also ridiculed the notion that animals should be entitled to the possession of their own lives,” Morrissey’s statement said.

“Furthermore, he found time to jokingly promote gun-ownership — hugely amusing for the parents at Sandy Hook, no doubt. … None of the above issues are, of course, as important as Jimmy Kimmel himself, who has finally revealed his show to have an overwhelming loss of meaning. Tune in and relive the intellectual fog of the 1950s.”