Sony Pictures TV fired Jim Thornton from Wheel of Fortune effective immediately after a thorough investigation, ending his run as the show’s announcer before the new season starts. The change lands with the show already recasting his announcements, so viewers will hear a different version when Wheel returns on September 14.
“Following a thorough investigation, Jim Thornton’s employment with ‘Wheel of Fortune’ has been terminated, effective immediately,” Sony Pictures TV said. The company had already suspended him while it reviewed the matter, and an interim announcer revoiced all of Thornton’s parts during that period.
September 14 on Wheel
September 14 is the first public line in the schedule that matters here: Thornton will not be heard when the new season begins. Sony Pictures TV has not announced a permanent replacement, which leaves the show using a stopgap voice solution rather than a settled announcer handoff.
Jim Thornton Game Show Suspension tracked the earlier step in that process, when the company moved from suspension to recasting. The sequence shows a hard personnel decision rather than a temporary off-air pause, and that is the part viewers should notice most.
TMZ photos and May
May is the date attached to the allegation that pushed this story into public view. TMZ posted photos it said were of Thornton on an American Airlines plane with his laptop open on a disturbing chat room, and a passenger told a flight attendant about the screen.
Authorities were waiting to question him when the flight landed at LAX, and he was given permission to leave after authorities spoke to him. That detail leaves a gap between allegation and employer action: Sony Pictures TV moved after its own thorough investigation, while Thornton had not publicly addressed the allegations in the source material.
Jim Thornton in Los Angeles
1985 is where Thornton’s broadcast resume begins, when he first joined KNX 1070 Newsradio as a traffic reporter with Metro Traffic. From there, he worked as an afternoon anchor on KNX 1070 Newsradio, provided traffic reports on KCBS-TV, and later added Westwood One Radio Networks and KCOP-TV to his credits.
Thornton also joined Wheel in 2010 after the death of Charlie O’Donnell, and he has been the voice of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune on ABC. His other credits include The Price Is Right, Celebrity Deathmatch, The Cleveland Show, Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and commercial narration in Monsters, Inc. and the 2011 Oscar-nominated short animated film Let’s Pollute.
His resume also includes an Edward R. Murrow award, Golden Mike awards, and an Emmy. That long list explains why Sony Pictures TV’s immediate firing lands as a clean break, not a routine substitution, and why the show’s recast announcements now read like a bridge rather than a plan.
Allison Hart said Thornton had “become active in suicide-prevention advocacy since losing a close family member to suicide two years ago and he has spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation.” Sony Pictures TV has already made the personnel call; the only unresolved question now is what it found during the investigation that justified ending his job so abruptly.
