Claim:

TV personality Simon Cowell has teamed up with late-night talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert to launch an uncensored “Truth News” channel.

Rating:

Shortly after ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” a rumor circulated online claiming that English TV personality Simon Cowell had teamed up with late-night talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert to launch an uncensored news channel called “Truth News.”

ABC briefly took Kimmel’s show off the air over remarks the comedian made in the political aftermath of the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (ABC reinstated Kimmel’s show within a week of announcing the suspension, though broadcast companies Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group continued preempting the show on their stations. Sinclair ended the blackout on Sept. 26, 2025.) Meanwhile, Colbert’s network, CBS, announced the cancellation of his show in July, a move the network said was due to budget issues but that some critics suggested was retaliation for Colbert’s criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Facebook page Echoes of the South posted (archived) the alleged story about the threesome, sparking support from thousands of fans. The post displayed a collage featuring an image of Cowell on top of one showing Kimmel and Colbert standing together onstage at the 2019 Emmys. The story began, “Jimmy Kimmel just lit the fuse no network dared touch — and Colbert lit it with him. But the real gasoline was poured by Simon Cowell.”

Other Facebook posts circulated using the same caption, like this one posted on Sept. 27 (archived). Some of those posts featured links in top comments leading to articles hosted by WordPress blogs, such as one advertisement-filled story hosted on the news.azontree.com website (archived), which began as follows:

Jimmy Kimmel just lit the fuse no network dared touch — and Colbert lit it with him. But the real gasoline was poured by Simon Cowell. Yes, that Simon Cowell — the TV kingmaker who turned global television upside down with American Idol and The X Factor.

Now he’s stepped off the judging panel and into the media battlefield, igniting a war no one thought possible.” What began as fallout from one controversial remark about Charlie Kirk’s killing has spiraled into nothing less than a media rebellion.

Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, once rivals, shocked the nation by announcing the launch of an uncensored, unscripted news channel outside ABC and CBS control. No approval. No filter. No safety net. Just a vow to report what the networks won’t.

But then came the Cowell twist. The man synonymous with brutal honesty and global stardom declared that he would back the project — not as talent, but as architect and financier.

Snopes readers also searched the website to find out if the rumor was true.

A Google search for “Simon Cowell Jimmy Kimmel Stephen Colbert Truth News” found no news outlets reporting about the celebrities starting an uncensored channel. Prominent outlets would have widely reported this rumor, if true.

Rather, the person or people who authored the story fabricated the entire tale to take advantage of the current news cycle about Kimmel and Colbert. The story about a “Truth News” channel collaboration between Cowell, Colbert and Kimmel amounted to fiction, so we have rated the claim as false.

An examination of the Echoes of the South page found that it posted seemingly fraudulent stories about Simon Cowell nearly every day, including false announcements of his death (archived). The page also featured multiple instances of images and text that showed signs of being generated by artificial intelligence (AI). For example, the blog that the post linked to exhibited writing characteristics typical of AI, like using five em (—) dashes in one paragraph and making allusions to sources without attribution, like “insiders whisper.”

GPTZero, a tool for detecting AI in text, gave the blog a 100% likelihood of being AI-generated. Snopes contacted a manager of the Echoes of the South Facebook page to inquire about the authenticity of the posts displayed in its feed, and will update this story if we receive a response.

Many of the stories featured on the page could be characterized as “AI slop,” low-quality, AI-generated content designed to encourage clicks and shares. Overly heart-warming or dramatic, shocking stories about celebrities are one common type of slop. The individuals who generate and spread these stories aim to earn advertising revenue on websites linked from the aforementioned Facebook posts.

Nearly identical stories about different groups of celebrities also circulated in 2025, like this one (archive) about Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, teaming up with Kimmel and Colbert to launch a supposed “independent newsroom.” It is unlikely that these TV hosts would launch so many similar projects in such a short span.

For further reading, Snopes previously reported on a Cowell death hoax posted by a similar Facebook page.

Sources:

“GPTZero Dashboard.” GPTZero Dashboard, https://app.gptzero.me/.

Izzo, Jack. “Snopestionary: AI Slop, Explained.” Snopes, 22 Aug. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//articles/470975/ai-slop-media-literacy/.

Jimmy Kimmel Taken off Air over Charlie Kirk Comments. 18 Sep. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c203n52x1y9o.

Liles, Jordan. “Simon Cowell Is Not Dead, Despite ‘Very Sad News’ Death Hoax.” Snopes, 1 Dec. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/simon-cowell-death-hoax/.

Loe, Megan. “Breaking down Claim CBS Was Losing $40M a Year on Colbert’s ‘Late Show.'” Snopes, 22 Jul. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//news/2025/07/22/cbs-losing-money-colbert-show/.

Staff, T. H. R. “Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Joke About a Hostless Emmys | Emmys 2019.” The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Sep. 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel-joke-a-hostless-emmys-emmys-2019-1242111/.

“‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ Wins Emmy after CBS Cancellation.” NBC News, 15 Sep. 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/-late-show-stephen-colbert-wins-emmy-cbs-cancellation-rcna231276.

“What to Know about Jimmy Kimmel’s Return to His Late-Night TV Show.” AP News, 18 Sep. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/jimmy-kimmel-show-suspended-charlie-kirk-ae43c600bd0f2a4c7d3c12077e91b211.