Stephen Colbert announced ‘massive’ wildlife rescue program for endangered elephants?

A rumor that circulated online in August and early September 2025 claimed Stephen Colbert, the host of CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” announced he was funding a wildlife rescue program for endangered elephants. According to the story, Colbert himself helped to guide one of the first rescued elephants to freedom. Snopes readers searched this website to find out if the rumor was true.

This rumor appeared in numerous Facebook posts. For example, on Aug. 31, a user posted (archived) the story in the Facebook group National Geographic. (The page displayed no credible affiliation to the official National Geographic publication.) The post featured photos of Colbert, including one seemingly showing him with a circus elephant. The story began, “GOOD NEWS: Stephen Colbert just stunned fans with an announcement few saw coming — he’s funding a massive wildlife rescue program dedicated to saving endangered elephants.”

(A Facebook user posted the above image on a Facebook group named after, but not affiliated with, the official National Geographic publication.)

Days earlier, an Aug. 27 Facebook post (archived) on the page Angel Dog featured a longer version of the same story with the same pictures, as well as a link in the top comment leading to an advertisement-filled article hosted by the WordPress blog news.clubofsocial.com. The story began:

GOOD NEWS: Stephen Colbert just stunned fans with an announcement few saw coming — he’s funding a massive wildlife rescue program dedicated to saving endangered elephants. 🐘

Instead of simply cutting a check, Colbert personally joined conservationists on-site, helping guide one of the first rescued elephants back into its natural habitat. Witnesses said the scene was unforgettable: the giant animal hesitated for a moment, then took its first free steps — while Colbert stood in silence, tears in his eyes.

When the video of that release hit the internet, it went instantly viral. Millions of viewers around the world called it one of the most powerful acts of compassion they had ever seen. And Colbert’s emotional words afterward — about why he chose elephants and what this project really means — are sparking a global conversation today … 👇

However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no search results from news media outlets reporting about Colbert rescuing elephants. Prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this rumor, if true, especially considering the fact that CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, announced in July the cancellation of Colbert’s show, which is scheduled to end in May 2026. (The Yahoo search produced an AI-generated answer presenting unfounded information about Colbert’s alleged support of the large Elephant Sanctuary located in Hohenwald, Tennessee. By email, a spokesperson for Elephant Sanctuary said they did not see Colbert’s name listed in their system of past donors but also added the possibility of an anonymous donation.)

Rather, the person or people who authored the story fabricated the entire tale as one of hundreds of inspirational tales that depicted famous people and athletes performing inspiring acts of kindness. They aimed to earn advertising revenue on one or more WordPress blogs linked from Facebook posts. The story about Colbert and elephants amounted to fiction.

Digging into the rumor

An examination of the Angel Dog page’s stories found multiple indications of artificial intelligence-generated (AI) images and text, including fabricated stories and fake pictures showing him helping homeless people, providing care in nursing homes and giving cash to victims of the July 2025 Texas flash floods.

Regarding the rumor at hand, a user generated the picture of Colbert and the elephant with an AI tool. That image showed Colbert wearing one of his late-night TV show suits to visit an elephant in a circus tent, with an unnatural facial expression on Colbert’s face and a very smooth and shiny finish on the entire picture — one of the more telling signs of AI-created images.

The Angel Dog Facebook page displayed a mailing address for Galveston, Texas. However, Facebook’s “Page transparency” tab showed the page’s two managers resided in Vietnam. We previously reported on the prevalence of other Vietnam-managed Facebook pages in our investigation of a wave of fabricated stories and fake images about famous people allegedly providing their money and rescue efforts that appeared on the social media platform following the Texas floods, part of a larger trend of low-quality, AI-generated content often referred to as “AI slop.”

Similar fabricated stories claimed Colbert pledged up to $40 million to build a sanctuary for abused and abandoned dogs and cats, and also that he adopted a young girl whose parents died in the Texas floods.

These stories all very much resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories “that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”

For further reading, yet another false rumor claimed Colbert “rescued” abandoned twins who surprised him with an appearance on his show 20 years later.