The operators of the pedophilia chat room allegedly used by Jim Thornton during a May flight went public Tuesday, September 8, 2026, with a statement defending the site and arguing that the furor that cost the 61-year-old former “Wheel of Fortune” announcer his job is exactly why it is needed.

The statement landed four days after Sony Pictures Television fired Thornton, ending a run as announcer on the game show that began in 2011. The operators of the site, which is called Lifeline.chat, rejected the notion that criminal activity takes place there.

Chat Room’s Operators Defend Its Existence

The operators describe the site as a support forum for people attracted to children and say it bans illegal conduct, including the sharing of criminalized images, and removes members who break those rules. Users may, however, send “messages that the public may consider ‘offensive’ so long as they do not cross legal boundaries or put anyone at risk of harm,” the statement said.

“LifeLine exists precisely because the world is so incredibly hateful and punitive that minor-attracted people have no other means of support,” the operators said in closing.

Fired After a Sony Investigation

Sony Pictures Television, which produces “Wheel of Fortune,” sidelined Thornton on Tuesday, September 1, over allegations it would not describe at the time. A studio spokesperson confirmed the firing three days later, on Friday, September 4: “Jim Thornton’s employment with ‘Wheel of Fortune’ has been terminated, effective immediately.”

Producers are scrubbing Thornton’s work from the new season. He had filmed about one month’s worth of episodes before the suspension, and that material is being re-edited with someone else’s voice in a job one source called a “major undertaking.” The Season 44 premiere aired Monday, September 14, and a new announcer’s voice opened the show with “Ladies and gentlemen, here are the stars of our show, Ryan Seacrest and Vanna White.” The replacement has still not been officially named, and fans have speculated it is an AI voice, stage manager Jimmy McGuire or a last-minute hire. “New announcer isn’t great,” one Reddit user wrote.

In a report published September 10, an insider told Closer Weekly that Sony risks losing host Ryan Seacrest over the scandal, describing him as “somebody who is particularly allergic to any kind of scandal and innuendo.”

A Passenger’s May Photographs

Thornton was flying from North Carolina to Los Angeles in May when a nearby passenger photographed his laptop screen and flagged it to a flight attendant. American Airlines identified the flight in a statement: “On May 14, American Airlines Flight 1276 was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport following concerns reported by a customer onboard.”

The images, published in early September, seemed to capture chat messages on his display. Time stamps in the pictures suggest he spent close to an hour on the site, and another shot caught him running a Google search that referenced “panic.”

It is unconfirmed whether any of the visible messages were written by Thornton.

Thornton has not been arrested, and he has not been charged with any crime.

The Announcer’s Attorney Pushes Back

His attorney, Allison Hart, has said Thornton “never viewed, downloaded or consumed” illegal material involving children. A close relative died by suicide two years ago, she said, and he has since spent time in crisis chat rooms trying to help people struggling with suicidal thoughts.

Hart said he was looking for 988lifeline.org, the suicide-prevention site, but a link from someone he knew through a suicide-prevention group took him instead to a similarly named site — a chat room unrelated to crisis support, the one in the photographs. She said he left as soon as he understood what the site was and has not gone back. Officers spoke with him for no more than five minutes, decided on the spot that nothing improper had taken place and told him he was free to leave, she said.

Joshua Beach, a former “Wheel of Fortune” contestant, came to Thornton’s defense on social media. “I’ve said for years that Jim Thornton is one of my heroes,” he wrote. He added that some of what was reportedly on the chat room was “disturbing.”

Thornton deleted his social media accounts after the firing.

A native of Huntington, W.Va., Thornton earned a linguistics degree from Marshall University and joined all-news radio KNX 1070 in Los Angeles in 1985. He succeeded announcer Charlie O’Donnell, who died in 2010, and also announced “The Price Is Right” and “Jeopardy!”

Apart from Sony’s statement, the show has said nothing about the matter, and Thornton has spoken only through his attorney.