Originally appeared on E! Online
Content warning: This story discusses child sexual abuse images.
Jim Thorntonwill lend his voice to Wheel of Fortune no more.
One day after photos surfaced showing the game show announcer in an apparent pedophile chat room while aboard a flight, the ABC program announced he has been fired.
As a Sony Pictures Television spokesperson told E! News in a Sept. 4 statement, “Following a thorough investigation, Jim Thornton’s employment with Wheel of Fortune has been terminated, effective immediately.”
E! News has reached out to his lawyer for comment on the firing but hasn’t received a response.
Sony announced on Sept. 1 that Thornton—who joined the show in 2011 before Ryan Seacrest took over for host Pat Sajak—had been suspended while it was looking into undisclosed allegations against him.
A fellow passenger from an American Airlines flight then came forward, telling TMZ she saw Thornton on his laptop in what appeared to be a chat room for pedophiles while aboard their May flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Los Angeles.
In photos obtained by the outlet, Thornton sat on the plane with his computer open and the screen displaying messages in a chat room discussing a recent trip to a Golden Corral restaurant, where there were “a couple of cute boys and a hot little girl,” with a user framing the restaurant as an “all-you-can-eat Boyffet.”
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There was also a reference to “CP,” which the observer believes stands for child pornography.
Other entries included the lines “saunters to the bathroom for a quick w–k on the 737” and “does it count as the mile high club if its a h—job?” per the photos.
In response, Thornton’s lawyer Allison Hart told TMZ that the chat room is “not unlawful” and “there is no unlawful child pornography or other pedophilic content,” emphasizing, “My client never viewed, downloaded or consumed any child pornography whether on that commercial flight in May or at any other time.”
In fact, she framed the incident as accidental, saying that Thornton was “active in suicide-prevention advocacy” and “spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation,” but was sent a link by an acquaintance in that group that took him to a different chat website that had sexual content.
“When my client understood what the website was about, he left the page and has not visited since,” the attorney added, though TMZ reported that photos showed Thornton was in the chat room for 57 minutes.
His lawyer had also previously confirmed details shared by American Airlines that law enforcement were called to Thornton’s flight upon landing at Los Angeles International Airport in May, but said her client had done nothing wrong.
“When questioned about the complaint made by a fellow passenger on the flight,” she told TMZ Sept. 1, “law enforcement spoke to him for five minutes or less, immediately determined that no wrongdoing had occurred and told my client he was free to go.”
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