Fact Check: Candace Owens To Join Tucker Carlson on New Show Replacing 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'?

Claim:

Conservative political commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson will host a new late-night show to replace "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

Rating:

Labeled Satire ( About this rating? )

In mid-July 2024, a rumor spread online that conservative U.S. pundit Candace Owens would join former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on a new late-night show that would replace "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

For example, the Facebook page SpaceX Fanclub posted a meme making the claim on July 17.

The caption of the post, which had amassed more than 24,000 reactions, read: "Candace Owens Joins Tucker Carlson on His New Jimmy Kimmel Replacement Show - SATIRE."

(Facebook/SpaceX Fanclub)

Some Facebook users seemed to interpret the meme as a factual recounting of real-life events. One person wrote: " Will welcome a different point of view than that of the extremely liberal, not funny, one sided Kimmel," while another said: "Can not stand the man! Candace and Tucker have more like American points of view, not just Socialist Rhetoric!"

In addition, the pinned comment below the Facebook post linked to an article on the website Esspots.com , which read:

Breaking: Candace Owens Joins Tucker Carlson on His New Jimmy Kimmel Replacement Show

In a surprising and bold move, ABC has announced that conservative commentator Candace Owens will join Tucker Carlson on a new late-night show, set to replace the long-running "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" This decision marks a significant shift in the network's programming strategy, aiming to cater to a more diverse audience and reflect a broader range of viewpoints.

However, there was no evidence ABC, the television station that hosts "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", had any intention of replacing the show with something hosted by Carlson and Owens.

Rather, the rumor about the swap originated with a website that described its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. Esspots.com's disclaimer stated:

Welcome to Esspots.com, a website that specializes in satire, parody, and humor. Before you proceed to read our content, we would like to emphasize that nothing on this website is real. All of the articles, stories, and commentary found on Esspots.com are entirely fictitious and created for the purpose of entertainment only.

Esspots.com has a history of making up stories for shares and comments.

Snopes also ran the article's text through online tools that detect content produced by artificial intelligence, including ZeroGPT , QuillBot and CopyLeaks , all of which concluded the text had been AI-generated. Increasing numbers of articles containing false rumors on such sites are created the same way.

Furthermore, SpaceX Fanclub , the Facebook page that posted the claim, wrote in its Intro: "We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real."

Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims about Carlson in the past, such as a rumor he signed a $400 million deal to replace Jimmy Kimmel.

For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.