Claim:
In December 2025, late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert launched a multi-million dollar “Evergreen Sanctuary” for abandoned and abused dogs.
Rating:
In December 2025, a rumor about late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert’s apparently latest project spread around Facebook. According to (archived) various (archived) Facebook (archived) posts (archived), Colbert was launching a 6-acre, multi-million dollar “haven” in Malibu Hills, California, called The Evergreen Sanctuary, which would be devoted to abused and abandoned dogs.
These posts consistently linked out to WordPress blog posts with more details for the reader.
Snopes readers searched the site to find out if the rumor was true.
The rumor was one of countless other fabricated, AI-generated stories about celebrities that are popular on Facebook. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.
Snopes began with an online search for credible reporting on the topic and found no such reporting when searching for “stephen colbert dog sanctuary” and “evergreen sanctuary stephen colbert.” Snopes also searched the Malibu area for “Evergreen Sanctuary” on Google Maps, which left the Malibu area to instead highlight a permanently closed plant nursery in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles.
What Snopes did find through online searches were the very same Facebook posts spreading the rumor and videos of a regular segment on Stephen Colbert’s show called Rescue Dog Rescue, in which Colbert and a celebrity feature adoptable dogs on set in partnership with North Shore Animal League America.
With a few minor variations, the text of the WordPress blog posts were almost identical. Two posts from the same account linked to a blog beginning with the URL luxqi.feji.io, yet the links in the post each started with entirely different URLs: stronggoal.info and peakdash.forum. All four blog posts sharing the story were filled with advertisements in an apparent effort to maximize potential profit from clicks — a frequent tactic for Facebook accounts sharing dramatic AI-generated stories about public figures.
The style of writing within the blog posts themselves resembled the style of many other fabricated, AI-generated stories on Facebook. For example, many similar AI-generated stories include dramatic, punchy descriptions of the subject declaring something with few words, often stunning observers into silence. For example, a paragraph from one of the blogs about Colbert’s sanctuary read (bold emphasis our own):
On a fog-softened morning in the Malibu Hills, where the Pacific air drifts inland and the noise of Los Angeles feels far away, Stephen Colbert made an announcement that caught even longtime fans off guard. No punchline. No monologue. No studio lights. Just a simple declaration delivered with uncommon seriousness: he is launching The Evergreen Sanctuary, a six-acre refuge dedicated to abused and abandoned dogs.
Another fabricated celebrity story Snopes fact-checked, one that claimed Bette Midler invested in Netflix, was written so similarly to the Colbert story that it even included a nearly identical “no punchline” sentence (bold emphasis our own):
“I will invest 68 million dollars into Netflix,” she declared, her words hanging in the air like a thunderclap. “It’s time to rip apart the fog that has hidden the truth for far too long.” No punchline followed. No wink to the audience. Just raw, unfiltered conviction that sucked the oxygen from the room.
In general, AI-generated stories of this style are peppered with dramatic sentences highlighting the importance of the subject’s actions, punchy phrasing and descriptions of things with three or more adjectives. At or near the end of these stories, there is usually some kind of summary sentence, often highlighting a message, broken up by a colon.
For example, one of the Colbert blogs ended, “In a world saturated with noise, Stephen Colbert has chosen something radical: a place where the most damaged voices don’t need to speak at all — because someone finally listened.” The last paragraph in the already referenced Midler blog included, “One thing is certain: on December 2, 2025, Bette Midler didn’t just make headlines; she ignited a firestorm.”
According to its page transparency tab, the majority of the managers of the Facebook page that shared the two separate posts noted above, Issa, were from Vietnam (archived). Snopes has previously reported on the prevalence of Vietnam-managed Facebook pages in the spread of AI-generated misinformation on Facebook.
The stories were an example of glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.” It was just one rumor of many about celebrities, politicians and other public figures commonly shared on Facebook that are often dramatically heartwarming or shocking to farm shares and clicks, which in turn help them generate money from advertisements on linked websites.
Snopes has previously fact-checked numerous other examples of AI-generated content and glurge. Many of these have been about Colbert, including one claiming he announced a wildlife rescue program for endangered elephants.
