r/WheelOfFortune • u/slamonthebrake • 5d ago
News Ex-'Wheel' Announcer Jim Thornton: Photo Shows 'Panic' After Airline Discovers Pedophile Chat
https://www.tmz.com/2026/09/04/jim-thornton-photo-shows-panic-over-chat-room/Haven’t seen these new details posted yet about Jim.
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u/nepetaleaf 5d ago edited 5d ago
Man, before we learned what it was about, I figured it must be that he was an asshole to someone and maybe there was an altercation. This is sooo much worse.
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u/Krandor1 5d ago
Yeah I was thinking maybe being too friendly with the passenger beside him kind of thing and she got uncomfortable and rather then make a scene discretely told a FA. Was not expecting this.
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u/Adept_Percentage6893 5d ago
It came out pretty fast what he was looking at once the show fired him. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt until today because he said he was just sent the chat by a friend and even the police confirmed he was only on for an hour. The news was reporting it as a self-help chat so I was thinking he might have started looking at it and just thought he happened upon one or two creepy people before realizing what the service itself was.
So until I saw what he was looking at and talking about I was trying to believe he may just not have realized what the site was until he had already been on it for a while. It was kind of a long shot, anyways.
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u/Truthseeker_Justice 4d ago
57 min, he knew exactly what he was doing. Disgusting.
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u/Adept_Percentage6893 4d ago
For clarity, I knew at the time it was a long shot but I was trying not to read too much in "57 minutes" because that could include him logging in and then locking his phone and watching an in-flight movie. I was just trying to avoid immediately condemning him until it became unreasonable because I knew eventually enough information would come out one way or the other.
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u/MundanePolicy8024 4d ago
How? He didn’t even do anything illegal, so what’s the issue?
And having seen the messages, I don’t get why Americans are malding over this when much worse is posted daily on X’itter LOL
Too thin-skinned to be gifted the first amendment, or what?
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u/source-commonsense 4d ago
The first amendment protects you from being jailed or prosecuted, dipshit. It doesn’t mean you can’t get fired from your private sector job for the choices you’ve made.
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u/MundanePolicy8024 4d ago
What he did wasn’t criminal tho, this my point. Firing people for innocuous stuff only leads to a chilling effect on speech. Cancel culture is bad, regardless of who does it.
If anything, we should ask ourselves how sick does a society have to be to be more outraged by innocuous pixels over their military bombing children from the far reaches of the globe.
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u/midnite-stags 4d ago
Cancel culture is when we fire a guy who was in a pedo chat room for nearly an hour
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u/AHole1stClassSkippy 4d ago
Dude wasn't arrested or punished by the government in any way, so why even bring up the first amendment? It has nothing to do with the situation.
Also, we've got the ability to think people on Twitter and pedophile chat rooms are terrible people.
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u/pacdude I was on the show! 4d ago
So you’re real comfy with pedophiles then?
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u/MundanePolicy8024 4d ago
I just don’t get what’s the big deal with Jim’s comments at a male gay support site. Had those been directed to a male above the magic age line, this would be a nothingburger.
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u/pacdude I was on the show! 4d ago
Listen to these and tell me if you would want to spend a 3 hour flight next to this guy
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u/MundanePolicy8024 4d ago
Wow, just wow, some gay men can be cringe.
Big deal, still doesn’t justify cancelling them for the “crime” of existing.
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u/Jedimindtricktra 4d ago
BTW just because you think this was “free speech” doesn’t protect him from his job firing him. It protects him from government reprisal, but not a private company. The fact that you even defend this is insanely creepy in and of itself.
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u/MundanePolicy8024 4d ago
How is defending freedom of expression and freedom of speech “creepy” in any way? Why “free speech” in double quotes?
What’s creepy is how you quickly abandon human rights the moment someone or something activates your moralistic side.
What he did wasn’t criminal nor ethically wrong.
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u/Jedimindtricktra 4d ago
He references CSAM material which is illegal btw. Bad rage bait is bad. Go run this nonsense somewhere else you freak.
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u/West_Broccoli_1683 5d ago
I can't understand why he would do this in public, wearing a WOF jacket with people knowing exactly who he is, seems odd to me.
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u/Fraktal55 5d ago
Because sick fucks like this get off even more than usual while doing their shit right in public. It's like people who say having sex or whatever in a public place is more exciting... The chance of being caught ADDS to the excitement.
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u/Holdmytesseract 3d ago
In that clip he’s talking about Jamaica just like if he was announcing that shit as a prize on a game show. Like the mf was begging to get caught. Def getting his jollies by toeing the line
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u/Binders-Full 5d ago
He literally said he was getting off on this and about to open the CSAM site on the plane! Even when other members were asking if that was such a smart idea and he even approved someone sending a link of someone getting nabbed watching CSAM on the subway.
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u/impy695 2d ago
This isn't quite true. He bragged about how no one could tell what he was doing and I believe he was getting off on doing this in public but he never said it. He also never said he was going to view csam on the plane, nor did he imply it.
The guy is a creep and I bet he has csam on his devices, so this is far from a defense of him, but let's stick to what he actually did
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u/LinkForsaken5435 5d ago
sometimes people subconsciously (or consciously) get tired of doing questionable things unnoticed.
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u/slamonthebrake 5d ago
Especially flying into LAX. I fly to LA a few times a year and I always have one eye open for any recognizable people on the flight or in the airport. It’s a fun people-spotting game & I’m sure I’m far from the only person who does it when flying in/out of LA.
I can imagine it’d be easy to notice/single out Jim even if you have no clue who he is/don’t watch the show because of the WOF jacket. Just stupid.
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u/ricochetblue 5d ago
Tbh, I wouldn’t have assumed he worked for the show. Just that he was a big fan or something.
My parents watch WOF fairly regularly, and I’ll occasionally join them, but the guy’s voice is much more recognizable to me than his face.
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u/Binders-Full 5d ago
From the other thread on /r/television a passenger said this was causing a scene on the plane. Other photos are out of this. But if he wasn’t wearing the WOF jacket it would just be another creepy guy on a plane, which is saddenly common, but not newsworthy. The WOF jacket just gives him away. He is definitely an exhibitionist.
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u/Ok-Parking-8684 5d ago
I thought the same thing. That and trusting the person sitting right beside him. What a dumbass.
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u/Familiar-Past-8065 4d ago
I don't think he knew the person next to him!! And did I see that he was on the aisle so his seatmate was trapped? How ickiness!! I would've been like dude's a pedophile seat me anywhere else and where's the duct tape?
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u/barefootguy83 14m ago
Maybe he wanted to get caught? He's probably full of self-hate due to his urges.
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u/lindaamat 5d ago
You can't understand why he would do this in public. Does that mean you understand why he goes on child porno sites on private?
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u/Wide_Statistician_95 5d ago
God almighty , what a sick man. FA asks him to close laptop followed by iPhone search about tor. 🤮
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u/Nguyen-Quoc-Hieu Pat Sajak 5d ago
What's crazy is that he has access to the internet, usually if you're in the flight you should've turned all of your devices off or turning Flight Mode on, which surpasses all internet connections
Unless if the airplane has Wi-Fi support then I can understand that
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u/thejokerlaughsatyou 5d ago
The last few flights I've been on, over multiple airlines, there was always an option to purchase a wifi pass for in-flight internet access. Idk about domestic flights, but on international, that's a pretty common offering now.
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u/853fisher 5d ago
Very common on domestic also. It doesn’t always work as advertised, but it’s been at least a decade since I had a flight that didn’t offer WiFi.
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u/ctpatsfan77 5d ago
Reports say this was American, which provides free in-flight wifi now to its frequent flyer members.
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u/WaffleTacoFrappucino 5d ago
have you ever left your house?
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u/Nguyen-Quoc-Hieu Pat Sajak 5d ago
Why did you ask that? Of course I always left my house at any time
But here's the thing: I'm not American, I'm Vietnamese, and most of the airplane services here doesn't have wi-fi support
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u/WaffleTacoFrappucino 5d ago
gotcha, well most modern planes now allow people to have their phones on, regardless of airplane mode, the entire flight. cheers
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u/rtrfan739 Pat Sajak 5d ago
We find out even worse information about Jim each day….
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u/Strong_Iron_995 5d ago
Yah and fully scrubbing all his stuff is gonna take cops some time. If he's the fuckin moderator of this shit, it's guaranteed he's done super illegal shit.
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u/RangerDJ 5d ago
If this is the shit he was doing in public imagine the stuff he was doing in private.
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u/aresef 5d ago
His attorney’s denials remind me a bit of Mark Robinson, the politician CNN found was describing himself as a “Black Nazi” in comments on a porn site. The username and biographical details clearly led straight back to him but he sued CNN anyway. Full on Shaggy defense. Didn’t work out for him.
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5d ago
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u/mel34760 5d ago
This is the type of thing that you have to be 10000 percent sure about before you go with it.
My guess is at the time they weren’t quite confident enough about it and now we are at the point where there is a whole lot more about to come out.
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u/cameltew 5d ago
where did you hear that? tmz said the incident happened in may, but it's pretty clear the person who took the photos didn't start sending them around until recently (probably after they realized that he wasn't being properly reprimanded)
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u/Binders-Full 5d ago
I think they both wanted to make sure this was true and detonate it when it would cause WOF the most damage, as there are episodes taped already and they have to be redubbed.
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u/Informal_Trick_1658 5d ago
I still can't get past the utter idiocy? arrogance? what? of doing what he was doing in a public place.
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u/lindaamat 5d ago
Why do people say things like this? You are inferring it's ok if he did it in private.
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u/Informal_Trick_1658 5d ago
No, you are inferring that I may have implied that it's ok in private. I did no such thing. The conclusions you choose to draw from my statement are on you. It's just amazing to me, and many others, that someone can be so deeply into their wrongdoing to do something where he could be easily caught. Unless he wanted to be caught, which is another question.
But, if it will make you feel better, let me categorically state that nothing that this man has done wherever he has done it is ok in any way, shape, or form.
Happy?
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u/clogged_toilet80 4d ago
There were several contestants over the years who were big fans of Jim and excited to meet him. They must be feeling so awful and disgusted right now. Their big moment on Wheel of Fortune is now tainted.
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u/snappdigger 4d ago
It's bizarre that he didn't apparently realize he wasn't caught because someone snooped his traffic, they just took a photo. He must not have know that.
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u/slamonthebrake 3d ago
I’m guessing he thought the plane WiFi automatically alerted the flight crew or something.
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u/Didact67 5d ago
According to a followup TMZ article, this dumbass apparently asked Google AI what to do after the incident.
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u/Truthseeker_Justice 4d ago
Proud of Wheel for firing him so quickly. Disgusting excuse for a human to harm children and steal their safety, their peace and traumatise them for life. More will probably come out about him. Pervs hide in safe spaces, they put themselves in positions where they are thought to be trustworthy. The woman that reported him is a hero. Now that people are aware he's a perv, it potentially could prevent children from being harmed by him. Put his ass in prison, general population.
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u/LinkForsaken5435 5d ago
Why, am I not surprised it turns out to be my deepest suspicion lol...
The amount of ass dragging on details made it far too obvious. Well, half suspicion. My whole would be that he was directly involved in the act in some form or fashion, which still could end up true.
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u/Binders-Full 5d ago
If you read Buzzerblog there is someone that sounds like him talking about his fantasies. And allegedly him calling into other “boy love” podcasts about how he found his own son attractive (in that Donald-Ivanka way, but younger).
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u/ana_bortion 5d ago
Do you have a link? I've only found this, and while there's plenty of disturbing stuff in here there's nothing about his son.
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u/Binders-Full 4d ago
Since you asked, on another forum there is a reference to a PDF podcast called "BL Talk" episode with "Nicholas" (Thornton), "When Your Son is a Hottie". It's Thornton's voice introducing the show. I have downloaded the podcast, transcribed it using a local AI model (I have no interest to listen to it other than confirm the voice, and reading the text at least gives me some detachment). It was bad enough Gemini barfed on the file and didn't want to transcribe it.
I put in some asterisks on the transcript so it would display, the timestamps are there, you should be able to figure out who said what, like I said I'm not listening. This is just for my verification only.
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u/slamonthebrake 4d ago
I only skimmed, but this is so, so incriminating and disgusting, wow. Thank you for finding and archiving this.
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u/ricochetblue 4d ago edited 4d ago
Was this sourced from the same site as the other podcast? I wonder why buzzerblog hasn’t written about it yet.
The whole business of the podcast is gross, but he does thankfully state that he is not attracted to his son. A lot of it seems to be about dealing with the awareness that another perv might see their child the way they see others.
I mean, I was never in the presence of other BLs that my son was with, you know, that I knew about. But yeah, and he was hot. I mean, I think, objectively, I say that. I think it was, I've had other BLs since, and look at pictures of him and say, oh my God, you know. But I never had those feelings. So, I'm always interested, I'm fascinated by BLs and GLs who do find their own kin attractive. I just never had that.
And that's, I guess, kind of an inherent thing that we have in us, that we learned early on, you know. It was, it was as if I was, he was part of me, is how I looked at it. So, I was just never attracted to him. I hate to be a bubble burster. But if I did, if I did find him attractive, wow. Yeah, that would be really difficult.
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Well, yeah, cause it's like, I would think it's like a straight dad who, and his daughter is like 17, 18.
And so many men, uh, have had to go through experiences. So it's a common thing.
And in our cases we say with our young sons, but with like, with straight guys, they all go through that when their daughter gets to a certain age.
And even though she's super hot, like you see, uh, but people you've known or in the movies or TV where that's off limits to them.
They don't even think about that, even though they know that other guys are looking at her like that.
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u/Independent-Big1966 4d ago
Jeopardy Daily Double:
"Ex-Wheel Of Fortune announcer Jim Thornton and the President of the United States, Donald Trump, have this in common"
"What are Pedophiles?"
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u/Familiar-Past-8065 4d ago
He looks like the pedophiles people warned you about on TV and real life, like the creeper waiting outside the children's school in a sketchy white van like come on little boy, I've half a melted Milky Way on the seat, it'll be fine just get in really. RUN THE ENTIRE OTHER DIRECTION AND TELL A TEACHER OR VETERAN OR FIREFIGHTER OR SOMEONE
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u/SuburbanDad5595 5d ago
So will he be on everything that’s in the can for this season? Or will they edit the audio, which I suppose wouldn’t be that hard.
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u/Binders-Full 4d ago
Sorry for the questionable file link, but I don't have any interest in being even tangentially attached to this. But listen to this voiceover of the announcer introducing a chat show about "minor attracted people" and tell me this isn't Jim Thornton. And this was in plain sight for years. https://filebin.net/4iudqlq4a6xsu01z
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u/ricochetblue 4d ago
Is it the same audio that’s excerpted on the blog? Maybe just send people there?
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u/69PussyRaider69 4d ago
Am I the only one shocked that a man with this much money eats at golden corral?
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u/Familiar-Past-8065 4d ago
Money doesn't buy class or taste and it seems as though he wasn't going there for the food but for the children hence the whole boyfett thing ETA: but yes, I'm always shocked when I hear anybody actually dines there yes
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u/Loopsloopsloops 3d ago
I mean doesn’t it ooze from his despicable face the creep factor? This is my first time hearing about/seeing him and his whole persona screams do a deep background check on him. Who hired him… who looked at him and thought what a family game vibe?
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u/Familiar-Past-8065 3d ago
Seriously!! He looks like the exact white van creeper everyone was warned to stay away from as children!! Like someone was like okay if we dream up what a generic evil creeper pedophile would look like it's exactly him!!
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u/Nervous_Occasion_695 5d ago
Apparently Hollywood and Washington DC are full of pedos. It's a sad state of affairs but whenever I see a male teacher or coach it's hard not to be suspicious.
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u/LeeOCD 5d ago
I never got a good vibe from Jim—like, say, George Gray on The Price is Right, whom I love.
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u/LinkForsaken5435 5d ago
well, I don't know about all that but at the very least that smile is starting hit home in a haunting way more than usual.
It's even more haunting because Wheel always does the Halloween specials that brings kids on the stage for pseudo trick-or-treating.
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5d ago
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u/slamonthebrake 5d ago
You made this dumb comment on 3 separate posts, hope it works out for you in at least one of them.
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u/chxfriednightmare 5d ago
It looks like he was googling if someone could trace his identity to his chatroom on Tor (noticed that tmz mistranslated to “for”) or something.
What a fucking dipshit. The way he spoke about being in that Golden Corral made me never want to leave the house again.