Did a real weatherman named "Jim Acosted" break down and rant on air about his ex-wife, Helene, while discussing Hurricane Helene? No, that's not true: The "Jim Acosted" video is satirical and features a comedian playing a fictional weatherman whose ex-wife is named "Helene." The comedian acts in numerous videos on the YouTube channel Valuetainment Comedy.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on September 26, 2024. The post, which included a video, had a caption that read:
Hurricane Helene Chaos: Weatherman Loses It Live On Air.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Sat Sep 28 17:59:57 2024 UTC)
Nothing indicates that the video is an actual newscast. "Jim Acosted" does not mention any TV station, nor does a station's logo appear in the graphics. "Jim Acosted" also makes jokes about Tampa and "illegal immigrants" that violate professional standards to which broadcast staff are held.
Using keywords, Lead Stories did a search on Google (archived here) that found no credible documents or reporting to confirm the claim. However, a YouTube version of the video (archived here) was posted on the channel Valuetainment Comedy (archived here) on September 26, 2024.
The video's description on YouTube notes that the person playing "Jim Acosted" is actually Vincent Oshana (archived here). Oshana is the same person whose account (archived here) posted the video on X. He frequently appears (archived here) in comedic videos released by Valuetainment (archived here), a media company that describes itself as "the leading source for information, education and entertainment centered on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and capitalism" (archived here).
Lead Stories has debunked other claims related to Hurricane Helene, which can be found here.
