Did Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Simon Cowell team up to launch ‘Truth News’ channel?

A rumor that circulated on-line in September 2025 claimed that English TV character Simon Cowell was backing an uncensored information channel referred to as “Reality Information” with late-night speak present hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.

The rumor circulated shortly after ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s present over remarks the comic made in regards to the political aftermath of the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (ABC reinstated Kimmel’s present inside per week of saying the suspension, although broadcast firms Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group continued preempting the present on their stations. Sinclair ended the blackout on Sept. 26, 2025.) In the meantime, Colbert’s community, CBS, announced the cancellation of his present in July, a transfer the community mentioned was resulting from budget issues however that some critics suggested was retaliation for Colbert’s criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump.

For instance, on Sept. 20, Facebook page Echoes of the South posted (archived) a narrative in regards to the threesome, receiving over 42,000 reactions. The publish displayed a collage that includes a picture of Cowell on prime of 1 displaying Kimmel and Colbert standing together onstage at the 2019 Emmys. The story started, “Jimmy Kimmel simply lit the fuse no community dared contact — and Colbert lit it with him. However the true gasoline was poured by Simon Cowell.”

Different Fb pages additionally shared the same claim (archived). A few of these posts featured hyperlinks in prime feedback resulting in articles hosted by WordPress blogs, similar to one advertisement-filled story hosted on the information.azontree.com web site (archived), which started as follows:

Jimmy Kimmel simply lit the fuse no community dared contact — and Colbert lit it with him. However the true gasoline was poured by Simon Cowell. Sure, that Simon Cowell — the TV kingmaker who turned international tv the wrong way up with American Idol and The X Issue. 

Now he is stepped off the judging panel and into the media battlefield, igniting a warfare nobody thought doable.” What started as fallout from one controversial comment about Charlie Kirk’s killing has spiraled into nothing lower than a media rebel. 

Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, as soon as rivals, shocked the nation by saying the launch of an uncensored, unscripted information channel outdoors ABC and CBS management. No approval. No filter. No security internet. Only a vow to report what the networks will not. 

However then got here the Cowell twist. The person synonymous with brutal honesty and international stardom declared that he would again the challenge — not as expertise, however as architect and financier.

Snopes readers additionally searched the web site to search out out if the rumor was true.

A Google search for “Simon Cowell Jimmy Kimmel Stephen Colbert Reality Information” discovered no information retailers reporting in regards to the celebrities beginning an uncensored channel. Distinguished retailers would have extensively reported this rumor, if true.

Reasonably, the particular person or individuals who authored the story fabricated the whole story to reap the benefits of the present information cycle about Kimmel and Colbert. The story a few “Reality Information” channel collaboration between Cowell, Colbert and Kimmel amounted to fiction, so we’ve got rated the declare as false.

An examination of the Echoes of the South web page discovered that it posted seemingly fraudulent tales about Simon Cowell almost day-after-day, together with false announcements of his death (archived). The web page additionally featured a number of situations of photographs and textual content that confirmed indicators of being generated by synthetic intelligence (AI). For instance, the weblog that the publish linked to exhibited writing traits typical of AI, like utilizing 5 em (—) dashes in a single paragraph and making allusions to sources with out attribution, like “insiders whisper.”

GPTZero, a device for detecting AI in textual content, gave the weblog a 100% probability of being AI-generated. Snopes contacted a supervisor of the Echoes of the South Fb web page to inquire in regards to the authenticity of the posts displayed in its feed, and can replace this story if we obtain a response.

Most of the tales featured on the web page could possibly be characterised as “AI slop,” low-quality, AI-generated content material designed to encourage clicks and shares. Overly heart-warming or dramatic, surprising tales about celebrities are one widespread kind of slop. The people who generate and unfold these tales purpose to earn promoting income on web sites linked from the aforementioned Fb posts.

Almost similar tales about totally different teams of celebrities additionally circulated in 2025, like this one (archive) about Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Present” on MSNBC, teaming up with Kimmel and Colbert to launch a supposed “unbiased newsroom.” It’s unlikely that these TV hosts would launch so many related tasks in such a brief span.

For additional studying, Snopes beforehand reported on a Cowell death hoax posted by the same Fb page.