WATCH: Jimmy Kimmel comes clean about wolf in Sochi hotel video prank
TORONTO – A U.S. luger shared a video Thursday morning of what she called a “wolf” wandering the halls at a hotel in Sochi.
Kate Hansen tweeted a video from her YouTube account of what looks like a stray dog on the prowl in her hotel.
“I’m pretty sure this is a wolf wandering my hall in Sochi,” Hansen said on her YouTube page.
Stray dogs have been in the spotlight in Sochi, as athletes are rushing to adopt them to save them from extermination.
So this massive animal could just be another stray, perhaps a Husky? A wolf? Jon Snow of Game of Thrones fame?
Turns out the whole thing was a hoax concocted by late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.
Kimmel said Thursday he cooperated with Hansen to post a fake video of a wolf wandering the hall outside the athlete’s room in Sochi. Instead, Kimmel’s staff rented a wolf and built a set in Los Angeles that was a replica of the dorm and filmed the animal walking around.
“It made me kind of laugh as an individual, not as an IOC spokesman,” said Mark Adams, International Olympic Committee spokesman, on Friday. “I don’t think there’s any harm done,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anything serious.”
Hansen, in an interview on the show, said that “it kind of went a little crazy over here” when the wolf story started spreading. “There was a little more backlash than I thought there would be,” she said. “But it was all worth it in the end.”
In September Kimmel was behind a video showing a woman lighting her hair on fire while twerking. That video circulated for days before Kimmel came clean on his show that he was behind it.
GALLERY: Below are images of stray dogs wandering the Olympic facilities in Sochi
–with a file from the Associated Press
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