Kansas City Chiefs didn’t issue statement about not participating in Pride Month

Pride Month kicked off June 1 and the Kansas City Chiefs are among a handful of National Football League teams which, as of June 10, haven’t acknowledged it on social media.

But one social media user took it a step further, claiming the defending Super Bowl champions  "refuse to participate in Pride Month," because  ‘it’s Extremely Woke,’" the June 8 Facebook post’s caption said.

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The Facebook post links to a full story in the comments that said the Chiefs released an official statement that said, "While we support diversity and inclusion, we believe that the current iteration of Pride Month has become overly politicized and does not align with our team’s values. We have therefore decided not to participate in any Pride Month events or celebrations this year."

As of June 10, we found no evidence the Chiefs issued such a statement. The article making the claim is from a website that contains numerous fake headlines. A Google search of the headline shows it originated on a self-described satire site.

(Facebook screenshot)

The Chiefs did not immediately return a request for comment. We checked the Chiefs’ main social media accounts June 10 and did not find any posts about Pride Month — either supporting or opposing it. Nor did we find any statements saying the team wouldn’t participate, like the one shared in the Facebook post.

The team’s website news page includes no posts about Pride Month as of June 10, and the Chiefs communications department’s X account has not posted since mid-February. We searched Google and the Nexis news database and found no articles about the Chiefs making an announcement about not participating in Pride Month.

Although the Chiefs haven’t acknowledged Pride Month on social media, its official team pro shop sells Pride merchandise.

Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker made headlines after giving a May commencement speech at the Catholic Benedictine College in which he referred to Pride Month as an example of one of the deadly sins "that has an entire month dedicated to it." 

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The Facebook post links to a website with the nondescript name, "News Today." It shows dozens of headlines, many of which negatively describe Pride month or athletes and celebrities not wanting to work with "woke" people. A Google search of the Chiefs headline shows it originated June 6 on a website called SpaceXMania, a self-described satire site.

None of the "News Today" articles have bylines, and all say they are written by "admin." The website, which made its first post in May, does not have a disclaimer that it’s satire, but the headlines are ridiculous and easily disproved.

One headline claims Whoopi Goldberg was permanently kicked off "The View" set live on air for celebrating Pride. That did not happen. Goldberg was in her usual seat on "The View" set June 10. 

Another headline claims Bud Light lost billions after appointing former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Coliп Kaeperпick as brand ambassador. That also did not happen. Snopes fact-checkers found a similar claim in May originated on a satire site.

We rate the claim that the Kansas City Chiefs said they refuse to "participate in Pride Month" because ‘it’s extremely woke’ False. 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.