Did celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay kick athlete Lia Thomas out of his restaurant, saying, "I don't let woke people dine here"? No, that's not true: This story originally appeared on a website with a satire disclaimer that's known for publishing fabricated content. The website also posted the quote on Facebook with a caption that read, "Satire."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on October 30, 2024. The caption said:
'I Don't Let Woke People Dine Here'
Satire
This is what the post looked like at the time of this writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Jan 10 15:26:39 2024 UTC)
In the comments, the author of this post linked to an Esspots.com article (archived here) titled, "Breaking: Gordon Ramsay Throws Lia Thomas Out Of His Restaurant, 'No Place For You Here.'" Under the headline are two gray tags marked "SATIRE."
The description on the About Us page (archived here) of the Esspots website reads in part:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America.
SpaceXMania.com is also a satire website.
The description (archived here) underneath the disclaimer tab on the Esspots website, in part, reads:
Welcome to Esspots.com, a website that specializes in satire, parody, and humor. Before you proceed to read our content, we would like to emphasize that nothing on this website is real. All of the articles, stories, and commentary found on Esspots.com are entirely fictitious and created for the purpose of entertainment only.
Lead Stories searched using keywords on Google News (archived here) and found no credible reporting to confirm this claim.
Lead Stories reached out to representatives of Gordon Ramsay for a statement on the validity of this claim. If any responses are received, this fact check will be updated.
Read more
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Gordon Ramsay and Lia Thomas can be found here and here.
Lead Stories has covered other Esspots.com articles, which can be read here.
