Claim Blake Shelton called off $30 million CMT project started as satire | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read
10
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The claim: Blake Shelton canceled a $30 million project with CMT in support of Jason Aldean

A July 29 Instagram post (direct link, archived link) shows side-by-side photos of country musicians Blake Shelton and Jason Aldean.

“Blake Shelton Cancels $30 Million Project With CMT: 'Jason Is My Friend,’” reads the text beneath the photos.

The post was liked more than 20,000 times in six days. Similar versions accumulated more than 1,000 shares on Facebook and an additional 20,000 likes on Instagram.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: False

The claim originated on a website that posts satirical stories. Both the publisher of the website and Shelton's publicist called it untrue.

Satirist: ‘I don’t publish the truth’

The controversy around Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town” has spawned several stories from the satirical website Dunning-Kruger Times.

The text appearing beneath the photos in the post is identical to the headline of a story on the website.

Dunning-Kruger Times is a subsidiary of the America's Last Line of Defense satirical network and describes itself as satire on its "About Us" page, saying, "Everything on this website is fiction.”

Individual stories, however, are not labeled as satire or fiction.

“I don’t publish the truth on any of the websites you’ll find on ALLOD,” Christopher Blair, the website’s creator, said in an email to USA TODAY.

Fact check: No, Luke Bryan did not remove videos from CMT in support of Jason Aldean

Wes Vause, Shelton’s publicist, also told USA TODAY the claim was false.

CMT stopped airing the video for Aldean’s song days after its July 14 release in response to criticism its lyrics glorify gun violence and lynching. Aldean, who survived a mass shooting at a music festival while he performed in 2017, responded to the criticism with a lengthy statement denying the song encourages violence.

Shelton has not made any public statements about the controversy – or said anything about a multimillion-dollar project with CMT – on his website or his social media accounts. There have been no reports of any such move by Shelton from any reputable media outlets.

The story is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where stories written as satire and originally presented that way are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here. The many users who shared the claim included no reference to the Dunning-Kruger Times or it being satire.

USA TODAY previously debunked several stolen satire claims rooted in the website’s posts about the controversy, including claims that Hank Williams Jr. quit CMT’s board of directors and that CMT parent company Paramount may cut the network.

The story referenced a CMT spokesperson named "Joe Barron,” which is a name frequently used in stories on the website. It has previously been used to refer to the supposed CEO of Publix, the CEO of Levi's and the chairman of Disney.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim Blake Shelton called off project with CMT | Fact check