No, Michelle Wolf Didn't Do Anything in These Fake News Stories

Comedian Michelle Wolf’s contentious performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday left a sour taste in the mouths of critics, who claimed her roast was inappropriate for the event. Perhaps unsurprisingly, rumors are now swirling that Wolf has faced reprimand from Comedy Central and Hulu. Both rumors, to borrow the now-ubiquitous label, are fake news.

The story surfaced online Sunday following the annual White House Correspondents Association event, for which Wolf was chosen to perform this year. A site called the Daily World Update, which bills itself as “conservative satire,” published two stories, one of which claimed the “entertainment industry is reeling this morning after one of their rising stars, Michelle Wolf, has been fired from her show on Comedy Central.” The report also claimed that the network apologized to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was the subject of several of Wolf’s jokes.

Another article by the same site published the same day claimed that a statement by a fictitious Hulu president named Irwin R. Fletcher explained that “in light of recent remarks made by Michelle Wolf, we have elected to cancel the standup special.” Snopes confirmed that both Daily World Update’s Hulu and Comedy Central stories are false, and Politifact has labeled Daily World Update as “a fake news site promoting false information.”

While neither Hulu nor Comedy Central seemingly has any projects in the works with Wolf at present, as Snopes notes and IMDB confirms, she is currently on tour ahead of the premiere of The Break with Michelle Wolf on Netflix May 27.

The White House Correspondents Association President Margaret Talev has since released a statement shared to Twitter that said:

Last night’s program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.

Wolf, who defended her Saturday performance following backlash on Twitter, has been quote tweeting criticisms of her jokes. Replying to Sean Spicer, who tweeted that the event was a “disgrace,” Wolf tweeted, “Thank you!”