\u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d announcer Jim Thornton\u2019s longtime tenure on the popular game show is officially over. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Sony Pictures Television, which produces \u201cWheel of Fortune,\u201d confirmed in a statement shared with The Times on Friday that Thornton\u2019s \u201cemployment with \u2018Wheel of Fortune\u2019 has been terminated, effective immediately,\u201d following an investigation. Sony suspended Thornton<\/a> on Tuesday amid an ongoing probe into then-unspecified allegations. <\/p>\n A legal representative for Thornton, 61, did not immediately respond to The Times\u2019 request for comment on Friday. <\/p>\n A day before TMZ first reported on the announcer\u2018s firing, the outlet published numerous photos<\/a> that show Thornton on his laptop aboard a flight visiting a website that describes itself as a support chat for \u201cpeople who are attracted to children.\u201d In photos taken by a neighboring passenger, Thornton\u2019s computer screen appears to show messages of one user saying they \u201csaw a couple of cute boys and a hot little girl\u201d at a restaurant they referred to as an \u201cAll-you-can-eat Boyfett\u201d and a second user referring to \u201cCP,\u201d commonly shorthand for child pornography. The photos published by TMZ<\/a> also show Thornton, who is wearing a black jacket embroidered with the \u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d logo on his sleeve, appearing to type into the chat room.<\/p>\n Thornton\u2019s attorney Allison Hart told TMZ that he became a suicide-prevention advocate after a loved one took their life two years ago and he has since spent time visiting crisis chat rooms to offer \u201csupport to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation.\u201d According to TMZ, Thornton claimed an acquaintance from a suicide prevention group sent him a link to an unrelated, non-crisis chat room \u2014 the one seen in the photos. Thornton also reportedly said he quickly left the disturbing chat room \u201conce he found out what it was.\u201d Time stamps seen in the photos show Thornton remained in the chat room for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n The passenger complained about Thornton to a flight attendant and shared the photos with the crew, according to TMZ. American Airlines informed the outlet that a passenger was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport on May 14, although the airline did not identify the individual.<\/p>\n Thornton\u2019s attorney also told TMZ earlier this week that he \u201cdid not engage in any illegal conduct, was not arrested and has not been charged with any crime.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen questioned about the complaint made by a fellow passenger on the flight, 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,\u201d his attorney said.<\/p>\n Thornton\u2019s \u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d tenure traces back to 2011 following the death of his predecessor, Charlie O\u2019Donnell. His game show credits include \u201cThe Price Is Right,\u201d \u201cThe Soup,\u201d \u201cJeopardy!\u201d and \u201cCelebrity Wheel of Fortune.\u201d He has performed voice work for the movie \u201cMonsters, Inc.,\u201d and video games including \u201cWall-E\u201d and \u201cMafia II.\u201d<\/p>\n Times staff writer Andrea Flores contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d announcer Jim Thornton\u2019s longtime tenure on the popular game show is officially over. A spokesperson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[33730,88,354370,22208,61610,2310,22843,4381,171335,119677,20853,354371,151095,15601,23058,354369],"class_list":["post-836889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chat-room","tag-entertainment","tag-fire-jim-thornton","tag-flight","tag-fortune","tag-friday","tag-individual","tag-law-enforcement","tag-numerous-photo","tag-outlet","tag-passenger","tag-room-incident","tag-thornton","tag-times","tag-tmz","tag-wheel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}