Did Michelle Wolf just lose a $4 million dollar contract with Adam Sandler's production company after her comedy routine at the White House Press Correspondents' dinner was deemed inappropriate by some? No, that's not true. The original version of this hoax was published by a website that posts fake stories designed to rile up conservatives and Trump supporters (under the guise of satire) and then mocks them for believing the articles.
The Sandler hoax originated from an article published on May 1, 2018 on Daily World Update and was titled "BREAKING: Michelle Wolf's Vulgar Jokes Just Cost Her $4 Million." (archived here) which opened:
Even Adam Sandler is upset with Michelle Wolf. In a statement released today from Happy Madison Productions, Sandler said:"I am diappointed and saddened that my good friend, Michelle Wolf, can no longer be my friend. She went and called our Press Secretary a fat, softball playing lesbian and that's unnacceptable.
Furthermore, My studio will no longer need Ms. Wolf for her role in the new Little Niki movie, where she was to earn $4 million to play hell's version of Debbie Wasserman Schultz."
Wolf Tweeted back almost instantly that she was fine with that because she was to play Fiona Dourif's mother in a reboot of Bride of Chucky, but that film has also been canceled, costing her another $410K.
Wolf's comedy routine did not include a part where she called White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders "a fat, softball playing lesbian". We were also unable to find any news about a new version of Sandler's 2000 movie Little Nicky being in the works. And this is not the first time the network of sites Daily World Update is part of has used actress Fiona Dourif's name as a character in a fake story.
The site comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:
sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.
The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites, including potatriotpost.us, dailyworldupdate.us and nofakenewsonline.us. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.
This particular story was indeed copied by a fake news website that omitted the satire disclaimer and got about ten times the number of Facebook interactions out of it:
BREAKING: Michelle Wolf's Vulgar Jokes Just Cost Her $4 Million.
Even Adam Sandler is upset with Michelle Wolf. In a statement released today from Happy Madison Productions, Sandler said: "I am diappointed and saddened that my good friend, Michelle Wolf, can no longer be my friend. She went and called our Press Secretary a fat, softball playing lesbian and that'
If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.
We wrote about dailyworldupdate.us before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:
- Fake News: Hillary Clinton NOT Killed In Monster Truck Mishap
- Fake News: Hillary Clinton NOT Killed During FBI Raid
- Fake News: Hulu Did NOT Cancel Michelle Wolf's Standup Special After Disgustisting Attacks
- Fake News: Michelle Wolf NOT Fired -- Comedy Central Did NOT Apologize To Sarah Sanders
- Fake News: Queen Elizabeth II NOT Dead At 94
