Sept. 5, 2026
**NEW** Wheel of Fortune Fires Longtime Announcer…. And It’s Bad
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RSS Feed Sony Pictures has officially fired longtime announcer Jim Thornton from “Wheel Of Fortune” after photos show Thornton on a known pedophile chatroom while on an American Airlines flight back in May. Now, TMZ has released new photos from the passenger who documented Thornton’s online activities, showing what he did after the flight attendant confronted him and told him to close his laptop. Thornton was looking for advice from AI about being digitally linked to the pedophile chatroom, even suggesting he was panicked. TMZ also identified Thornton’s chatroom handle, which exposes exactly what he was saying on the chatroom while in flight. We want to warn you, the messages are extremely disturbing. Thornton’s attorneys initially offered a flimsy explanation of accidentally clicking a link, but are no longer commenting, following his firing
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: It is Saturday, September 5th, and Wheel of Fortune has fired its longtime announcer.
00:00:18
Speaker 1: And it's bad.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes, this story, just a few days ago, it started with a bit of a mystery about why he was suspended. We found out why he was suspended. Rose, we could get more and more and more. They didn't have a choice but to fire this guy.
00:00:34
Speaker 3: No, there was no choice whatsoever. So it was Tuesday. When we first heard from Sony Pictures TV saying that they had been made aware of allegations concerning their announcer, Jim Thornton.
00:00:47
Speaker 1: Wait, what day was that?
00:00:48
Speaker 3: Tuesday. Tuesday. And so they said he has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.
00:00:55
Speaker 1: And we're all like, what the actual hell?
00:00:57
Speaker 2: Why do you suspend a guy over an incident that police even said there was no wrongdoing?
00:01:03
Speaker 1: We were like, what the actual hell? hell, they know something.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a head scratcher. And then it came on, I believe, late Thursday, Friday, TMZ posted pictures from a passenger, this passenger who reportedly went to a flight attendant, who went to a pilot, who then went to law enforcement after she saw some behavior. Well, we figured out what the behavior was when we saw photographs that this passenger took where you see Jim Thornton wearing a Wheel of Fortune jacket, and you see pictures of his computer screen.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: You can see it clear as day. I mean, nobody's arguing that this wasn't accurate. Even his attorney's not. Rogues, we can see this screen clearly, and people are openly in a chat room discussing some of the... You can't believe this is normal conversation to talk about how hot and cute a little boy and a little girl are.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: Rose, this is some twisted stuff.
00:02:01
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a known pedophile chat room that apparently, I guess, is legal based on free speech.
00:02:08
Speaker 1: There's no child pornography, right?
00:02:10
Speaker 3: There's no child pornography on the chat room, but it's a place where people who have those proclivities can, I guess... share and talk about their desires, which is so deeply disturbing. And on top of that, it's very concerning that he felt totally comfortable and actually got a thrill, according to the chat room and what we believe he was typing, got a thrill off of being in this pedophile chat room while on a commercial flight.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Okay, we've all, everybody's flown. You've seen people with their laptops up before. Yes, we've all done it before.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: You sneak a peek. They can see what they're doing? No big deal.
00:02:53
Speaker 2: You're not trying to study necessarily what they're doing. Rose, the picture that is out shows a guy pretty relaxed with his screen and not concerned about anybody seeing it. Rose, if I'm typing emails, I'm careful about people seeing stuff.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Rose, how is he this comfortable? He's chilling in the picture.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: It's disturbing. It's so disturbing. And so, yes, Jim Thornton has officially been fired. The statement was short. And I would say sweet, but not really. They released this on Friday afternoon following a thorough investigation. Jim Thornton's employment with Wheel of Fortune has been terminated effective immediately.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: They have never addressed the nature of the allegations in any statement, have they?
00:03:38
Speaker 3: They have not, no. And look, the only reason why we can say that this did happen and those pictures are legit is that his attorney absolutely confirmed that because, and we'll get into the exact statement, but they are claiming that he was on that site accidentally because he clicked a link that resembled a suicide prevention chat room that he had often visited.
00:04:00
Speaker 1: They explained it, Ro. They had a reason for it. I said, no, this is just a misunderstanding. He was, yes, yes. What you saw in that picture, Robes, they confirmed. I'm not crazy, right? They confirmed the pictures, essentially.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Well, what you're seeing, let us explain.
00:04:15
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:04:15
Speaker 1: It was an accidental click of the wrong link.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: That he, according to TMZ photos that were given to him by this passenger, who was the whistleblower, have timestamps that clearly indicate he was on that chat room or in that chat room for nearly an hour.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: Yes, it's plain as day.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: Now, I guess it's possible he left the chat room and came back an hour later, and those are the timestamps we're.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Seeing, but it doesn't appear.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: There's a series of photos that seem to go in sequence of time, Robes, accidentally, we've all done it, at work or something, clicked on something, some.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: You're on there for 10 seconds.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Idiot friend of yours sent, and you click, like, oh, it's not safe for work, and you immediately start pounding on your laptop, right, to get.
00:05:01
Speaker 3: Out of there. We won't even Google things if we have to... Look, can you imagine, as journalists who oftentimes are covering... Pretty awful stories from crimes to sexual crimes, whatever. I won't even look things up because I don't want it on my computer, period.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: I did not look up this chat thing.
00:05:21
Speaker 3: Oh, hell no would I look this up.
00:05:23
Speaker 1: I didn't type it in because I was scared of what might pop up. Absolutely.
00:05:26
Speaker 3: No one wants to even know. And you wouldn't stay on there for 57 minutes. Now, there are new photos available. New photos from this same passenger. I wonder if TMZ had all these photos from the beginning and they're just smart on how they dull them out. You know how they do this. We've seen where they they keep and then they keep the story and it builds and it builds. So now we have a new set of photos from this passenger. And, babe, you've always said this. The cover up is worse than the crime. Not necessarily in this case, but it confirms the crime. A lot of people would.
00:05:58
Speaker 2: Say part of the cover up rose was that statement from the attorney. It's one of those things where I leave, you know I leave space, babe. And I give people grace and I want to listen to the other side. But it feels sometimes like people talking to you like you're stupid. He's an advocate for suicide prevention. And someone sent him a link.
00:06:17
Speaker 1: It was the wrong one.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: And he clicked on it. And this is why a pedophile chat room was up on his screen. Nothing to see here, people.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: May I also suggest that he had four months to come up with his excuse.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: And that was the best. Wait, did he not know this was coming? You know what? He might not have at all.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: He didn't, I don't think, because this woman had these photos. He didn't know she had these photos. He figured once he talked to police and it was over and he was able to go back to work and no one said anything, he figured he was safe. This woman, for whatever reason, decided... I say woman. I don't know that it's a woman. I don't know why I'm saying that. This passenger decided to share these photos with TMZ. We don't know why she waited... a couple of months to do so.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: Going back to she again, though. Oh, my goodness. That's funny.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: They, them, okay? Wow, that is so.
00:07:07
Speaker 1: We have no... How are you sure we haven't known? Because it's in my head that it's a woman as well.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: I don't... Maybe someone put a gender pronoun, but it doesn't matter. The passenger... You know what I think? I think a woman would be a motherly, a maternal instinct, a protective nature... would just be very, very upset about reading this and actually take action. Maybe that's just in my head that that's something that I believe a woman would do.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Well, let's ask ourselves, what would any of us do if we saw that?
00:07:33
Speaker 1: So I would be so shocked at what I was seeing. I don't know.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: You just spoke about how a man and a woman might react differently. I might confront him. Like, dude, what the fuck are you doing?
00:07:44
Speaker 1: Before I would go report him.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: See, I would never confront him. As a woman, absolutely not.
00:07:49
Speaker 2: Because I see him immediately as a threat to everybody on this plane. Because everybody on this plane is a parent, I'm assuming.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: And then there are children on this. He feels like a threat imminently. If you read that, baby, this stuff is bonkers.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: I love that this passenger took these photos. And these new photos that we just got that TMZ just released... The passenger said when she went and told the flight attendant and she became aware, she confronted him. And she told him to close his laptop. So then.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: Because it's lewd, right?
00:08:25
Speaker 2: If we were watching something lewd on our computer, they'd come tell us the same, would they not? Yes.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: There's been a complaint. You need to close your laptop.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: Close your computer.
00:08:32
Speaker 3: So this is what he does. He closes it and then he pulls out his phone and the passenger starts taking photos of his next actions after the flight attendant confronted him.
00:08:43
Speaker 1: This passenger was on it. It's amazing.
00:08:45
Speaker 3: She should be a journalist. They took a photo. And look, his hand is blocking some of the phone. But you can see that he has gone on to AI and is asking a question. And this is the response to whatever question Jim Thornton asked AI. No link to your room unless you explicitly told someone I am hosting this specific chat room for right now. Nobody... illegible at your internet illegible and link your identified to the illegible room. So he was clearly asking, am I going to be, can this be connected back to me? Can this Can a chat room be linked back to me? He's panicking then. And I say panicking because then there's another photo and this one is mostly blocked by his hand. It was a question he was asking, why you? And then it was illegible because his hand was blocking it to panic, even if some dot, dot, dot. So he basically is going on his phone and Googling or asking chat GPT, how concerned he should be, how panicked he should be, how worried he should be that someone may have seen him in this chat room. Doesn't sound like an accidental link.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Obviously, we knew this. I mean, it's one of those things. You're talking to us like we're stupid.
00:10:08
Speaker 1: But, Robes, I don't. What is this? Who is this? I am very curious, Robes.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: I have questions about what it's okay. All this stuff, it's okay to have these conversations. It's okay to have these conversations in chat rooms. I guess, Rob, a lot of vulgar things are taking place. Is there anything illegal about it?
00:10:30
Speaker 1: I guess. i'm i'm blown away babe that this stuff is happening i am too.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: I honestly i feel naive i obviously this makes sense but i didn't even think i wouldn't have thought this was legal and look this is so interesting because tmz is claiming that they know his user handle and i would imagine this comes from all of their information is coming from this passenger who documented this who sat there and watched him typing and watched him participate in this chat room. And so this passenger, we can safely assume, told TMZ what Thornton's handle was. So now when you can attribute some of what was said in this chat room directly to him because this passenger saw him typing, now it gets real, babe. So it appears, according to TMZ, that Jim Thornton wrote, So it's crazy doing, we're not, are we saying the name of the, of the pedophile chat room? Let's not because we have the names and we just don't even want to put it out there. So it's crazy doing this chat room from the sky. One of the other people on the chat room says, wait, you're on a plane. What if someone sees Jim Thornton says, what if someone sees a random sequence of lines on a screen? I love it. I hide the part that says, the name of the chat room. So it's just a few lines. It's a big middle finger to demand who takes away every other enjoyable activity. Then the person says, I mean, I guess it's not like you're doing anything illegal. And then he says, wait, I'll fire up another pedophile site that we won't name and start looking at the galleries. He, he, he, like he's laughing that he could pull up child porn if he wanted. And then they start talking about a guy who got arrested because he had child porn on his phone wallpaper. And he says, according to his handle, that they're attributed to him. And although they expect us not to look at it, there's no help if we wanted it. I mean, he is discussing in this chat room having a problem.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: It is no help if we wanted it.
00:12:48
Speaker 3: Is this.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Maybe we should start looking into this a little more, babe. Is this... Are there folks walking among us like this? Yes. We're carrying on and behaving normally, but have something, robes that even he's at. admitting is a problem he needs help with?
00:13:05
Speaker 3: But yet he said, if we wanted it. And I think that's a really important part because what really bothered me, it's a big, like he was describing being on this plane, being in a pedophile chat room as a big middle finger to the man who takes away every other enjoyable activity. That is so, for whatever reason, that line sent chills from my head to my toe that he basically is saying he's annoyed. He's pissed off that this isn't acceptable, that this isn't allowed, that he doesn't get to have his kicks in plain sight.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: I've observed so many times there are people your heart goes out to that make mistakes and do all kinds of things that, Robes, you want to give a beat for, give a little grace and not cancel, if you will, to a certain degree.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, Robes. There is nothing, the exploitation of the most innocent... and exploiting them even if they're not in front of you.
00:14:07
Speaker 2: Even if he hasn't done anything illegal ever at any point in his life.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: And nobody's suggesting that, right?
00:14:12
Speaker 3: No one's suggesting anything he's done is illegal.
00:14:15
Speaker 1: But Rose, we're parents and it's hard to deal with and stomach. Like I said, my reaction to him is as a threat on the plane. He's an immediate threat to everybody around. I don't know what he does and what he's But Rose, for the past 16 years, he's walked into that studio, sat in that booth, and fooled everybody around him? Is this a new thing? Is this a longtime, lifetime thing? I don't know, babe. This is.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: You know I have had a personal experience with a convicted pedophile who was my gym coach for many, many years. And I will tell you, they hide in plain sight. No one suspects a thing. They know how to be kind and loving. They're charismatic. They're oftentimes in positions where they have access... To children or to young people.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Did he that we know of of any work he did anywhere? I know voice work, but I haven't seen that anywhere.
00:15:07
Speaker 3: Haven't seen that anywhere. But typically, pedophiles blend in perfectly because they're personable. They know how to entertain. They know how to be funny and silly. They appeal to the masses.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: You said hiding in plain sight. He's hiding on the number one syndicated game show.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: In the country. He's been hiding on this show for 15 years. Hiding in plain sight. We hear his voice every night for the past 15 years. And we all missed it.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: I feel sick. And can you imagine all the people who worked alongside him?
00:15:47
Speaker 1: Who loved him?
00:15:49
Speaker 3: It is so awful to find out this type of deviance. Because we don't know if.
00:15:58
Speaker 3: His life has been victimless. I'm sure there are going to be, at least there, there has got to be some sort of an investigation into, into what may have happened. Maybe what never happened. But I do think that people who have known him, who have let their children be around him, I think they deservedly have questions that they will want answered. Uh, look, when we come back, because now TMZ is reporting his handle, uh, there are a couple of lines that now can be directly attributed to him that will make your skin crawl. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are getting more and more information about the longtime announcer of the Wheel of Fortune, 61-year-old Jim Carrey. Thornton is now officially fired. And we reported, we knew something had to be wrong. Obviously when they suspended him without giving any information, but especially when they went back season, uh, is it? I can't remember the year.
00:17:11
Speaker 1: It starts in a couple weeks.
00:17:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts September 14th. So this is like days away, and they already have a month's worth of episodes ready to go in the can. They've had to go back, scrub all of those episodes, and re-record them with an interim announcer.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: When we saw it, we said, uh-oh, this is bad.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: They've had to re-voice all of his parts on the shows. This is bad. And for them to do that, we knew it had to be something significant, but we just couldn't figure out what it was. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this would have been the reason why. And look, when you go back, we had seen some of the screen grabs from this passenger, from this chat room, but now that we have this handle. It looks as though Jim Thornton is the one who said, went to the Golden Corral for the first time with my dad and his wife yesterday. A nice hangout for kids. Saw a couple of cute boys and a hot little girl. All you can eat, boyfay.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: I think that was probably before TMZ reported that was his handle.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yes. I think that was the worst line I saw in all of this stuff.
00:18:22
Speaker 3: And, and according to TMZ, that came from Jim Ford. That is so, so disturbing. Now it's also of significance. Yeah.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: He's lusting after children. In that line, baby.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: Is it possible to lust after children and to be in chat rooms and to be disengaged and to laugh that someone might catch you, to get the thrill out of that, to think it's a middle finger to the man who won't let you have child porn on your phone? Is this a man who's never acted on his urges? He's 61. I don't know. I don't have the experience to know What to think, but I know what I feel. I know what seems possible and maybe even probable.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Went to Golden Corral and was checking out children. You don't refer to a child as hot if you're 61. No, you don't. You don't refer to boys.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: As cute if you're 61. All-you-can-eat boyfay?
00:19:24
Speaker 1: God dang.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: Robes. I hope this story ends with this and there isn't more to it. But there has been no new statement from Jim Thornton or his attorney after he was officially fired late on Friday. In fact, they gave this to TMZ. No comment.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Wait, that was. his attorney again?
00:19:51
Speaker 3: Yes, but we did hear from the attorney earlier trying to give a reason why Jim Thornton might have been accidentally on a trip child porn chat room. But like, again, once you see that this is his handle, you can't, it's not accidental.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: He's everything. A normal person panics.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: If you accidentally end up in that chat room, you read through four, it takes you four lines.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: You go, what the hell is this? And you would panic.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: And apparently he knew according to what he was typing, that this particular chat room was known to be a child pornography chat Because he said he hid what the name of the chat room was. He said he did that when he was on a plane. He would make sure that that name was not seen because he knew that people knew that that was a child porn chat room. I didn't know. I've never heard of this in my life.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: But you know what?
00:20:52
Speaker 2: It reads when we when we first saw before we knew what his possible handle was and we read those. It makes sense that the person in that chat that was talking about being on a plane was the guy that was on the plane.
00:21:05
Speaker 3: Yes, it all lines up. Now, his original, we should just read it, his original statement through his attorney was that Jim has become active in suicide prevention advocacy since losing a close family member to suicide two years ago, and he has spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation. He visits the official suicide prevention chats at 988lifeline. org. He says that's the chat forum and some, excuse me, chat forum. and that someone sent him a wrong link. It is, they do have similar names.
00:21:41
Speaker 1: Not that similar.
00:21:41
Speaker 3: But not similar enough for him to be writing what he wrote and to be acknowledging that he recognized this was a known pedophile chatroom. And look, it doesn't even warrant trying to explain away his statement because none of it makes sense.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Why put that statement out?
00:21:56
Speaker 3: It's obvious all BS. Did he think he was going to get away with it? Look, I think he did. He did for a while, for months. Until this passenger decided to take these photos and give them to TMZ, he would be the announcer for this next season. No one would have known.
00:22:13
Speaker 1: But Will of Fortune wasn't aware of this either.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: No.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: From the incident in May. They didn't know.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: No, they didn't know. So they said, it's been written in plenty, plenty of articles, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, that Sony Pictures responded to TMZ's news. Once TMZ put this out, within hours, they announced his suspension. So they, it seems, were not aware of anything until this passenger took these photos to TMZ. I wonder what, I'm sure, look, this is something you probably grapple with. Is it the right thing to do to expose this person? Police didn't do anything about it. But if this person went on and found out who Jim Thornton was and figured that this was a person who had prominence, who had prestige, who had a platform and therefore may have access because people trust him. This is a trusted voice that we hear in our televisions and come into our living rooms every night. So people would trust someone like that with their children. And maybe this passenger finally just said, I can't risk the fact that he could be acting out on these desires.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:23:19
Speaker 2: What's the threshold? This isn't just privacy, right? What if he was up to something not illegal, but you know, it didn't put him in a good light.
00:23:29
Speaker 1: Right? This is different because I have such.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: A problem sometimes with tabloids or exposing people or parts of their public or private lives just to do damage to their reputations, just to get a click, just to.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: Right. This is not that.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: No, this is a whole other.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: This is potential criminal behavior and it's not even a matter of I'm trying to take this person down.
00:23:54
Speaker 1: Robes, did they even.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: Know the person who Did they recognize him in the first place?
00:24:00
Speaker 1: How did they know this was who it was? How did they piece it together?
00:24:04
Speaker 2: How did they figure it out to know that it was worth sending to a TMZ that would find it newsworthy?
00:24:11
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I can only imagine that they were Googling. They saw the Wheel of Fortune jacket. I mean, literally, if he had not had the Wheel of Fortune jacket on, he might have gotten away with it because the passenger wouldn't have known. But I get it. Like, if you realize, well, this isn't just... And it's scary enough to have an average person present themselves as a potential pedophile. But to then put together the fact that this was actually a person who had... who had a platform, who was a trusted individual, a trusted probably and even beloved member of a community that is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing, you would feel like it was your civic duty to say something. And if police weren't going to do anything about it, there's another way to expose someone, and they chose to go to TMZ.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: That's an awful story.
00:25:02
Speaker 2: I think Will of Fortune did what they had to do, didn't have a choice but to do, And the show is going to be fine.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: I hate that for them. Because that is a wonderful program over there and wonderful people. So I hate it for them. They'll get past it. But will this be more? You said it, Robes. What now?
00:25:21
Speaker 2: Are people going to start asking, what did Wheel of Fortune know? When did they know it? Have there really not been any signs?
00:25:27
Speaker 1: Nothing? He really did hide all these years. Never been anything.
00:25:30
Speaker 3: I can tell you just from personal experience, I think some of these deviants are very adept at hiding. very adept at playing family men, very adept at playing beloved members of the communities, the community who are entrusted. With the voice. Yes. And so I only hope that there is an investigation into whether or not anyone was harmed, any child was harmed. And look, now that we have this information, anyone who has been in his world, anyone whose children have been in his world, Should be asking questions. Maybe there is nothing, and we hope, God, we hope there's nothing to it. But I fear that there could be, and it should be investigated. No question. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach, alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: It is Saturday, September 5th, and Wheel of Fortune has fired its longtime announcer.
00:00:18
Speaker 1: And it's bad.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes, this story, just a few days ago, it started with a bit of a mystery about why he was suspended. We found out why he was suspended. Rose, we could get more and more and more. They didn't have a choice but to fire this guy.
00:00:34
Speaker 3: No, there was no choice whatsoever. So it was Tuesday. When we first heard from Sony Pictures TV saying that they had been made aware of allegations concerning their announcer, Jim Thornton.
00:00:47
Speaker 1: Wait, what day was that?
00:00:48
Speaker 3: Tuesday. Tuesday. And so they said he has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.
00:00:55
Speaker 1: And we're all like, what the actual hell?
00:00:57
Speaker 2: Why do you suspend a guy over an incident that police even said there was no wrongdoing?
00:01:03
Speaker 1: We were like, what the actual hell? hell, they know something.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a head scratcher. And then it came on, I believe, late Thursday, Friday, TMZ posted pictures from a passenger, this passenger who reportedly went to a flight attendant, who went to a pilot, who then went to law enforcement after she saw some behavior. Well, we figured out what the behavior was when we saw photographs that this passenger took where you see Jim Thornton wearing a Wheel of Fortune jacket, and you see pictures of his computer screen.
00:01:36
Speaker 2: You can see it clear as day. I mean, nobody's arguing that this wasn't accurate. Even his attorney's not. Rogues, we can see this screen clearly, and people are openly in a chat room discussing some of the... You can't believe this is normal conversation to talk about how hot and cute a little boy and a little girl are.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: Rose, this is some twisted stuff.
00:02:01
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a known pedophile chat room that apparently, I guess, is legal based on free speech.
00:02:08
Speaker 1: There's no child pornography, right?
00:02:10
Speaker 3: There's no child pornography on the chat room, but it's a place where people who have those proclivities can, I guess... share and talk about their desires, which is so deeply disturbing. And on top of that, it's very concerning that he felt totally comfortable and actually got a thrill, according to the chat room and what we believe he was typing, got a thrill off of being in this pedophile chat room while on a commercial flight.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Okay, we've all, everybody's flown. You've seen people with their laptops up before. Yes, we've all done it before.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: You sneak a peek. They can see what they're doing? No big deal.
00:02:53
Speaker 2: You're not trying to study necessarily what they're doing. Rose, the picture that is out shows a guy pretty relaxed with his screen and not concerned about anybody seeing it. Rose, if I'm typing emails, I'm careful about people seeing stuff.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Rose, how is he this comfortable? He's chilling in the picture.
00:03:12
Speaker 3: It's disturbing. It's so disturbing. And so, yes, Jim Thornton has officially been fired. The statement was short. And I would say sweet, but not really. They released this on Friday afternoon following a thorough investigation. Jim Thornton's employment with Wheel of Fortune has been terminated effective immediately.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: They have never addressed the nature of the allegations in any statement, have they?
00:03:38
Speaker 3: They have not, no. And look, the only reason why we can say that this did happen and those pictures are legit is that his attorney absolutely confirmed that because, and we'll get into the exact statement, but they are claiming that he was on that site accidentally because he clicked a link that resembled a suicide prevention chat room that he had often visited.
00:04:00
Speaker 1: They explained it, Ro. They had a reason for it. I said, no, this is just a misunderstanding. He was, yes, yes. What you saw in that picture, Robes, they confirmed. I'm not crazy, right? They confirmed the pictures, essentially.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Well, what you're seeing, let us explain.
00:04:15
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:04:15
Speaker 1: It was an accidental click of the wrong link.
00:04:19
Speaker 3: That he, according to TMZ photos that were given to him by this passenger, who was the whistleblower, have timestamps that clearly indicate he was on that chat room or in that chat room for nearly an hour.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: Yes, it's plain as day.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: Now, I guess it's possible he left the chat room and came back an hour later, and those are the timestamps we're.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: Seeing, but it doesn't appear.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: There's a series of photos that seem to go in sequence of time, Robes, accidentally, we've all done it, at work or something, clicked on something, some.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: You're on there for 10 seconds.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Idiot friend of yours sent, and you click, like, oh, it's not safe for work, and you immediately start pounding on your laptop, right, to get.
00:05:01
Speaker 3: Out of there. We won't even Google things if we have to... Look, can you imagine, as journalists who oftentimes are covering... Pretty awful stories from crimes to sexual crimes, whatever. I won't even look things up because I don't want it on my computer, period.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: I did not look up this chat thing.
00:05:21
Speaker 3: Oh, hell no would I look this up.
00:05:23
Speaker 1: I didn't type it in because I was scared of what might pop up. Absolutely.
00:05:26
Speaker 3: No one wants to even know. And you wouldn't stay on there for 57 minutes. Now, there are new photos available. New photos from this same passenger. I wonder if TMZ had all these photos from the beginning and they're just smart on how they dull them out. You know how they do this. We've seen where they they keep and then they keep the story and it builds and it builds. So now we have a new set of photos from this passenger. And, babe, you've always said this. The cover up is worse than the crime. Not necessarily in this case, but it confirms the crime. A lot of people would.
00:05:58
Speaker 2: Say part of the cover up rose was that statement from the attorney. It's one of those things where I leave, you know I leave space, babe. And I give people grace and I want to listen to the other side. But it feels sometimes like people talking to you like you're stupid. He's an advocate for suicide prevention. And someone sent him a link.
00:06:17
Speaker 1: It was the wrong one.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: And he clicked on it. And this is why a pedophile chat room was up on his screen. Nothing to see here, people.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: May I also suggest that he had four months to come up with his excuse.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: And that was the best. Wait, did he not know this was coming? You know what? He might not have at all.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: He didn't, I don't think, because this woman had these photos. He didn't know she had these photos. He figured once he talked to police and it was over and he was able to go back to work and no one said anything, he figured he was safe. This woman, for whatever reason, decided... I say woman. I don't know that it's a woman. I don't know why I'm saying that. This passenger decided to share these photos with TMZ. We don't know why she waited... a couple of months to do so.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: Going back to she again, though. Oh, my goodness. That's funny.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: They, them, okay? Wow, that is so.
00:07:07
Speaker 1: We have no... How are you sure we haven't known? Because it's in my head that it's a woman as well.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: I don't... Maybe someone put a gender pronoun, but it doesn't matter. The passenger... You know what I think? I think a woman would be a motherly, a maternal instinct, a protective nature... would just be very, very upset about reading this and actually take action. Maybe that's just in my head that that's something that I believe a woman would do.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Well, let's ask ourselves, what would any of us do if we saw that?
00:07:33
Speaker 1: So I would be so shocked at what I was seeing. I don't know.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: You just spoke about how a man and a woman might react differently. I might confront him. Like, dude, what the fuck are you doing?
00:07:44
Speaker 1: Before I would go report him.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: See, I would never confront him. As a woman, absolutely not.
00:07:49
Speaker 2: Because I see him immediately as a threat to everybody on this plane. Because everybody on this plane is a parent, I'm assuming.
00:07:57
Speaker 1: And then there are children on this. He feels like a threat imminently. If you read that, baby, this stuff is bonkers.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: I love that this passenger took these photos. And these new photos that we just got that TMZ just released... The passenger said when she went and told the flight attendant and she became aware, she confronted him. And she told him to close his laptop. So then.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: Because it's lewd, right?
00:08:25
Speaker 2: If we were watching something lewd on our computer, they'd come tell us the same, would they not? Yes.
00:08:29
Speaker 3: There's been a complaint. You need to close your laptop.
00:08:31
Speaker 1: Close your computer.
00:08:32
Speaker 3: So this is what he does. He closes it and then he pulls out his phone and the passenger starts taking photos of his next actions after the flight attendant confronted him.
00:08:43
Speaker 1: This passenger was on it. It's amazing.
00:08:45
Speaker 3: She should be a journalist. They took a photo. And look, his hand is blocking some of the phone. But you can see that he has gone on to AI and is asking a question. And this is the response to whatever question Jim Thornton asked AI. No link to your room unless you explicitly told someone I am hosting this specific chat room for right now. Nobody... illegible at your internet illegible and link your identified to the illegible room. So he was clearly asking, am I going to be, can this be connected back to me? Can this Can a chat room be linked back to me? He's panicking then. And I say panicking because then there's another photo and this one is mostly blocked by his hand. It was a question he was asking, why you? And then it was illegible because his hand was blocking it to panic, even if some dot, dot, dot. So he basically is going on his phone and Googling or asking chat GPT, how concerned he should be, how panicked he should be, how worried he should be that someone may have seen him in this chat room. Doesn't sound like an accidental link.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Obviously, we knew this. I mean, it's one of those things. You're talking to us like we're stupid.
00:10:08
Speaker 1: But, Robes, I don't. What is this? Who is this? I am very curious, Robes.
00:10:16
Speaker 2: I have questions about what it's okay. All this stuff, it's okay to have these conversations. It's okay to have these conversations in chat rooms. I guess, Rob, a lot of vulgar things are taking place. Is there anything illegal about it?
00:10:30
Speaker 1: I guess. i'm i'm blown away babe that this stuff is happening i am too.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: I honestly i feel naive i obviously this makes sense but i didn't even think i wouldn't have thought this was legal and look this is so interesting because tmz is claiming that they know his user handle and i would imagine this comes from all of their information is coming from this passenger who documented this who sat there and watched him typing and watched him participate in this chat room. And so this passenger, we can safely assume, told TMZ what Thornton's handle was. So now when you can attribute some of what was said in this chat room directly to him because this passenger saw him typing, now it gets real, babe. So it appears, according to TMZ, that Jim Thornton wrote, So it's crazy doing, we're not, are we saying the name of the, of the pedophile chat room? Let's not because we have the names and we just don't even want to put it out there. So it's crazy doing this chat room from the sky. One of the other people on the chat room says, wait, you're on a plane. What if someone sees Jim Thornton says, what if someone sees a random sequence of lines on a screen? I love it. I hide the part that says, the name of the chat room. So it's just a few lines. It's a big middle finger to demand who takes away every other enjoyable activity. Then the person says, I mean, I guess it's not like you're doing anything illegal. And then he says, wait, I'll fire up another pedophile site that we won't name and start looking at the galleries. He, he, he, like he's laughing that he could pull up child porn if he wanted. And then they start talking about a guy who got arrested because he had child porn on his phone wallpaper. And he says, according to his handle, that they're attributed to him. And although they expect us not to look at it, there's no help if we wanted it. I mean, he is discussing in this chat room having a problem.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: It is no help if we wanted it.
00:12:48
Speaker 3: Is this.
00:12:50
Speaker 1: Maybe we should start looking into this a little more, babe. Is this... Are there folks walking among us like this? Yes. We're carrying on and behaving normally, but have something, robes that even he's at. admitting is a problem he needs help with?
00:13:05
Speaker 3: But yet he said, if we wanted it. And I think that's a really important part because what really bothered me, it's a big, like he was describing being on this plane, being in a pedophile chat room as a big middle finger to the man who takes away every other enjoyable activity. That is so, for whatever reason, that line sent chills from my head to my toe that he basically is saying he's annoyed. He's pissed off that this isn't acceptable, that this isn't allowed, that he doesn't get to have his kicks in plain sight.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: I've observed so many times there are people your heart goes out to that make mistakes and do all kinds of things that, Robes, you want to give a beat for, give a little grace and not cancel, if you will, to a certain degree.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, Robes. There is nothing, the exploitation of the most innocent... and exploiting them even if they're not in front of you.
00:14:07
Speaker 2: Even if he hasn't done anything illegal ever at any point in his life.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: And nobody's suggesting that, right?
00:14:12
Speaker 3: No one's suggesting anything he's done is illegal.
00:14:15
Speaker 1: But Rose, we're parents and it's hard to deal with and stomach. Like I said, my reaction to him is as a threat on the plane. He's an immediate threat to everybody around. I don't know what he does and what he's But Rose, for the past 16 years, he's walked into that studio, sat in that booth, and fooled everybody around him? Is this a new thing? Is this a longtime, lifetime thing? I don't know, babe. This is.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: You know I have had a personal experience with a convicted pedophile who was my gym coach for many, many years. And I will tell you, they hide in plain sight. No one suspects a thing. They know how to be kind and loving. They're charismatic. They're oftentimes in positions where they have access... To children or to young people.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: Did he that we know of of any work he did anywhere? I know voice work, but I haven't seen that anywhere.
00:15:07
Speaker 3: Haven't seen that anywhere. But typically, pedophiles blend in perfectly because they're personable. They know how to entertain. They know how to be funny and silly. They appeal to the masses.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: You said hiding in plain sight. He's hiding on the number one syndicated game show.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: In the country. He's been hiding on this show for 15 years. Hiding in plain sight. We hear his voice every night for the past 15 years. And we all missed it.
00:15:43
Speaker 3: I feel sick. And can you imagine all the people who worked alongside him?
00:15:47
Speaker 1: Who loved him?
00:15:49
Speaker 3: It is so awful to find out this type of deviance. Because we don't know if.
00:15:58
Speaker 3: His life has been victimless. I'm sure there are going to be, at least there, there has got to be some sort of an investigation into, into what may have happened. Maybe what never happened. But I do think that people who have known him, who have let their children be around him, I think they deservedly have questions that they will want answered. Uh, look, when we come back, because now TMZ is reporting his handle, uh, there are a couple of lines that now can be directly attributed to him that will make your skin crawl. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. We are getting more and more information about the longtime announcer of the Wheel of Fortune, 61-year-old Jim Carrey. Thornton is now officially fired. And we reported, we knew something had to be wrong. Obviously when they suspended him without giving any information, but especially when they went back season, uh, is it? I can't remember the year.
00:17:11
Speaker 1: It starts in a couple weeks.
00:17:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it starts September 14th. So this is like days away, and they already have a month's worth of episodes ready to go in the can. They've had to go back, scrub all of those episodes, and re-record them with an interim announcer.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: When we saw it, we said, uh-oh, this is bad.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: They've had to re-voice all of his parts on the shows. This is bad. And for them to do that, we knew it had to be something significant, but we just couldn't figure out what it was. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this would have been the reason why. And look, when you go back, we had seen some of the screen grabs from this passenger, from this chat room, but now that we have this handle. It looks as though Jim Thornton is the one who said, went to the Golden Corral for the first time with my dad and his wife yesterday. A nice hangout for kids. Saw a couple of cute boys and a hot little girl. All you can eat, boyfay.
00:18:14
Speaker 2: I think that was probably before TMZ reported that was his handle.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yes. I think that was the worst line I saw in all of this stuff.
00:18:22
Speaker 3: And, and according to TMZ, that came from Jim Ford. That is so, so disturbing. Now it's also of significance. Yeah.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: He's lusting after children. In that line, baby.
00:18:36
Speaker 3: Is it possible to lust after children and to be in chat rooms and to be disengaged and to laugh that someone might catch you, to get the thrill out of that, to think it's a middle finger to the man who won't let you have child porn on your phone? Is this a man who's never acted on his urges? He's 61. I don't know. I don't have the experience to know What to think, but I know what I feel. I know what seems possible and maybe even probable.
00:19:08
Speaker 1: Went to Golden Corral and was checking out children. You don't refer to a child as hot if you're 61. No, you don't. You don't refer to boys.
00:19:20
Speaker 3: As cute if you're 61. All-you-can-eat boyfay?
00:19:24
Speaker 1: God dang.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: Robes. I hope this story ends with this and there isn't more to it. But there has been no new statement from Jim Thornton or his attorney after he was officially fired late on Friday. In fact, they gave this to TMZ. No comment.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Wait, that was. his attorney again?
00:19:51
Speaker 3: Yes, but we did hear from the attorney earlier trying to give a reason why Jim Thornton might have been accidentally on a trip child porn chat room. But like, again, once you see that this is his handle, you can't, it's not accidental.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: He's everything. A normal person panics.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: If you accidentally end up in that chat room, you read through four, it takes you four lines.
00:20:21
Speaker 1: You go, what the hell is this? And you would panic.
00:20:25
Speaker 3: And apparently he knew according to what he was typing, that this particular chat room was known to be a child pornography chat Because he said he hid what the name of the chat room was. He said he did that when he was on a plane. He would make sure that that name was not seen because he knew that people knew that that was a child porn chat room. I didn't know. I've never heard of this in my life.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: But you know what?
00:20:52
Speaker 2: It reads when we when we first saw before we knew what his possible handle was and we read those. It makes sense that the person in that chat that was talking about being on a plane was the guy that was on the plane.
00:21:05
Speaker 3: Yes, it all lines up. Now, his original, we should just read it, his original statement through his attorney was that Jim has become active in suicide prevention advocacy since losing a close family member to suicide two years ago, and he has spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation. He visits the official suicide prevention chats at 988lifeline. org. He says that's the chat forum and some, excuse me, chat forum. and that someone sent him a wrong link. It is, they do have similar names.
00:21:41
Speaker 1: Not that similar.
00:21:41
Speaker 3: But not similar enough for him to be writing what he wrote and to be acknowledging that he recognized this was a known pedophile chatroom. And look, it doesn't even warrant trying to explain away his statement because none of it makes sense.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Why put that statement out?
00:21:56
Speaker 3: It's obvious all BS. Did he think he was going to get away with it? Look, I think he did. He did for a while, for months. Until this passenger decided to take these photos and give them to TMZ, he would be the announcer for this next season. No one would have known.
00:22:13
Speaker 1: But Will of Fortune wasn't aware of this either.
00:22:15
Speaker 3: No.
00:22:16
Speaker 1: From the incident in May. They didn't know.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: No, they didn't know. So they said, it's been written in plenty, plenty of articles, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, that Sony Pictures responded to TMZ's news. Once TMZ put this out, within hours, they announced his suspension. So they, it seems, were not aware of anything until this passenger took these photos to TMZ. I wonder what, I'm sure, look, this is something you probably grapple with. Is it the right thing to do to expose this person? Police didn't do anything about it. But if this person went on and found out who Jim Thornton was and figured that this was a person who had prominence, who had prestige, who had a platform and therefore may have access because people trust him. This is a trusted voice that we hear in our televisions and come into our living rooms every night. So people would trust someone like that with their children. And maybe this passenger finally just said, I can't risk the fact that he could be acting out on these desires.
00:23:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
00:23:19
Speaker 2: What's the threshold? This isn't just privacy, right? What if he was up to something not illegal, but you know, it didn't put him in a good light.
00:23:29
Speaker 1: Right? This is different because I have such.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: A problem sometimes with tabloids or exposing people or parts of their public or private lives just to do damage to their reputations, just to get a click, just to.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: Right. This is not that.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: No, this is a whole other.
00:23:48
Speaker 2: This is potential criminal behavior and it's not even a matter of I'm trying to take this person down.
00:23:54
Speaker 1: Robes, did they even.
00:23:55
Speaker 2: Know the person who Did they recognize him in the first place?
00:24:00
Speaker 1: How did they know this was who it was? How did they piece it together?
00:24:04
Speaker 2: How did they figure it out to know that it was worth sending to a TMZ that would find it newsworthy?
00:24:11
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I can only imagine that they were Googling. They saw the Wheel of Fortune jacket. I mean, literally, if he had not had the Wheel of Fortune jacket on, he might have gotten away with it because the passenger wouldn't have known. But I get it. Like, if you realize, well, this isn't just... And it's scary enough to have an average person present themselves as a potential pedophile. But to then put together the fact that this was actually a person who had... who had a platform, who was a trusted individual, a trusted probably and even beloved member of a community that is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing, you would feel like it was your civic duty to say something. And if police weren't going to do anything about it, there's another way to expose someone, and they chose to go to TMZ.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: That's an awful story.
00:25:02
Speaker 2: I think Will of Fortune did what they had to do, didn't have a choice but to do, And the show is going to be fine.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: I hate that for them. Because that is a wonderful program over there and wonderful people. So I hate it for them. They'll get past it. But will this be more? You said it, Robes. What now?
00:25:21
Speaker 2: Are people going to start asking, what did Wheel of Fortune know? When did they know it? Have there really not been any signs?
00:25:27
Speaker 1: Nothing? He really did hide all these years. Never been anything.
00:25:30
Speaker 3: I can tell you just from personal experience, I think some of these deviants are very adept at hiding. very adept at playing family men, very adept at playing beloved members of the communities, the community who are entrusted. With the voice. Yes. And so I only hope that there is an investigation into whether or not anyone was harmed, any child was harmed. And look, now that we have this information, anyone who has been in his world, anyone whose children have been in his world, Should be asking questions. Maybe there is nothing, and we hope, God, we hope there's nothing to it. But I fear that there could be, and it should be investigated. No question. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach, alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.