A rumor that circulated online in June 2025 claimed entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey mocked actor Jonathan Roumie's faith during a "spiritual enlightenment special" broadcast live by her production company, Harpo Studios. Roumie portrays Jesus Christ on the Christian streaming series "The Chosen."
For example, on June 11, the Familiar Origins YouTube channel posted a video (archived) titled "Oprah Mocked Jonathan Roumie's Faith on Live TV — His Response Left Her Speechless…" The clip received more than 400,000 views. The thumbnail image depicted Winfrey as pointing at Roumie and telling him of Christianity, "That belief is bulls***."
Numerous users shared this rumor on websites including Facebook (archived), TikTok (archived) and YouTube (archived).
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no trace of Winfrey ever interviewing Roumie. The rumor amounted to nothing more than one of the latest attempts by online creators to earn YouTube advertising revenue with the promotion of fabricated rumors focused on entertainment or politics. Those creators executed their plans by using artificial-intelligence tools to create the video and its fake thumbnail image, which did not authentically show Winfrey pointing at Roumie. (The Sightengine AI-detection website found a 99% probability that someone "likely" generated the image with AI.)
Snopes contacted representatives for Winfrey and Roumie by email to request comment regarding the fabricated rumor and will update this story if we receive more information.
The Familiar Origins YouTube video's description featured a disclaimer about its fictional content. The disclaimer was visible only to users clicking "more" to expand the description to its full length:
The stories on this channel are entirely fictional and meant for entertainment; any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Through respectful storytelling, we explore social issues like discrimination, bias, and inequality, encouraging reflection on compassion and dignity, while our scripts, editing, and sound design are carefully crafted to preserve the emotional impact and spark meaningful dialogue.
Other videos appearing in May and June 2025 featured similar rumors about the Winfrey and Roumie. For example, one YouTube video (archived) from June 15 promoting another fabricated claim displayed the title "Oprah Mocked Denzel Washington's Faith on Live TV — His Response Left Her Speechless…" Also, in May, a Facebook user's post (archived) displayed a link to a YouTube video (archived) falsely claiming of "The View" host Whoopi Goldberg, "Whoopi MOCKS Jonathan Roumie's Faith on Live TV — Then He Says One Line That Silences Her…"
The creators who posted these videos practiced trial and error, fabricating numerous variations of these rumors in the hope that one or more of the clips would become popular and generate a large amount of views, meaning YouTube advertising revenue.
For further reading, a previous fact check examined an untrue rumor claiming the FBI investigated Winfrey for a "land grab" following the August 2023 Maui wildfires.