NASCAR fans, beware! A post circulating on social media this week claims that professional race car driver Jeff Gordon has come out of the closet as a homosexual man. Additionally, Gordon allegedly admitted to being in a relationship with fellow driver Stephen Rhodes.
The problem is, neither racer has made any such statement, and the report leads back to a satirical sports news website.
Posted on the website Empire Sports (which admits that it’s a satire publication in its disclaimer), the article claims that Gordon and Rhodes (who is actually gay) are dating openly, and while they refused to comment on their relationship, both confirmed it 100 percent.
As brothers-in-arms at Hoax-Slayer point out, the Empire Sports site includes the following disclaimer:
Empire Sports is a satirical and entertainment website.
Empire Sports uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.
Furthermore, from their “About” page:
Empire Sports is part news, part op-ed, (part, ahem, tabloid) and one hundred percent entertaining.
We report on current events in sports. Sometimes we report on news that has yet to happen. Sometimes we report things we just WISH would happen.
Why the author wishes Jeff Gordon was actually gay so he could make stupid jokes about him, we do not know.
What we can tell you is that neither Gordon not Rhodes have made any such statement regarding an alleged homosexual relationship between them. Rhodes has been openly gay since age 17, and is married to a guy named Andy Mitchell. Gordon has been married twice; first to Brooke Sealey between 1994 and 2003, and then model Ingrid Vandebosch in 2006 (after his divorce from Sealey).
You know what to do. If you see this story shared on Facebook, CRUSH IT.
“Jeff Gordon Gay, Dating Stephen Rhodes? Hardly” is part of SocialNewsDaily’s “Hoaxed” series which debunks viral social media hoaxes. Hit the share buttons on the left, or check out more from the series in the “Social Communities” tab up top.
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