Jimmy Kimmel took a well-earned victory lap the night after revealing the viral YouTube Video “Worst Twerk Fail EVER – Girl Catches Fire” was a hoax video he’d made with a stuntwoman named Daphne. YouTube’s video of Kimmel’s reveal was up to nearly 7 million views in less than 24 hours — catching up to the 10.8 million views the hoax video had clocked, but it’s been up for about a week. “It was kind of a fun day today. There was a lot of excitement around our office today,” Kimmel said at the top of his ABC late-night show last night. “Those of you who saw the show last night know we pulled a prank on a lot of people. We made a video of a girl twerking and what appeared to be accidentally setting herself on fire. And we posted that video to a private account on YouTube and, on its own, it took off…it ran on hundreds of news stations – it was the Milli Vanilli of YouTube videos. But the funny thing is, after all the news channels embarrassed themselves by running a bogus video — today, they ran it again to announce that it wasn’t real.”
Cut to video of some of those “news channels”:
– It’s all BS – Jimmy Kimmel did it! — Whoopi Goldberg, ABC’s The View
– Jimmy Kimmel was behind it. — Lara Spencer, ABC’s Good Morning America
– James Kimmel! — Billy Bush, syndicated Access Hollywood
– We were all duped by Jimmy Kimmel! — some HLN talking head
– It was so realistic and unbelievable! – Hota Kotb, NBC’s Today
– Damn you Kimmel! – Chris Cuomo, CNN’s New Day
– Well played, Jimmy Kimmel! – ABC’s The Chew cast
“Some people were actually upset it wasn’t real. I’m sorry the girl in yoga pants didn’t suffer third-degree burns,” Kimmel cheap-shotted. “Some people say they now won’t believe anything anymore. But let me say this — just because we faked this particular video doesn’t mean everything on the Internet is fake. Porn is still real.”
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.