There’s no evidence that Speaker Mike Johnson is messaging on Grindr

A TikTok user posted screenshots appearing to show a conversation House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had with someone else on the gay dating app Grindr.

"It’s always the MAGA Christians," read the caption under the March 23 TikTok which included a photo of Johnson and the message, "What time should I pick you up from your hotel?"

The message’s color formatting matched the texting color scheme on Grindr, which is largely used by the LGBTQ+ community, especially gay and bisexual men. 

The claim spread rapidly across social media to X and Threads.

But there’s no evidence to support these screenshots’ authenticity. Johnson’s office declined to comment.

(Screenshot of TikTok videos)

TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

The screenshots were first posted by @cjbakerfitness, an account that says it’s run by CJ Baker, whose videos across several platforms feature criticism of the Trump administration. The same day, the account published two more TikTok videos about the purported Grindr conversation. In one that received 2.9 million views, Baker said that the messages came from an Instagram user who called them "true" and asked him to share them with his 310,000 followers. In the other, Baker posted more screenshots of the supposed conversation. The three TikToks received more than 3.6 million views combined. 

We messaged the @cjbakerfitness account on TikTok to ask about the images’ source.  He shared screenshots of what looks like an Instagram direct message conversation between him and a person whose identity was cropped out of the screenshots. The thread showed this person told @cjbakerfitness that the purported Grindr exchange with Johnson was two years old.

But the Johnson photo in the Grindr thread is cropped from a selfie Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Penn., posted publicly March 4, 2025, on X, showing the two of them inside the Capitol Hill Club, a Republican social club. Other photos of the event confirm the image was taken on this date, after a meeting of the House Republican Conference.

And there are several other signs that this conversation is likely fake.

Online generators make faking Grindr conversations easy work. In less than a minute, for example, we constructed a test conversation about this fact-check.

Featured Fact-check

Brooke Rollins

stated on March 7, 2025 in an X post

A $600,000 federal grant went to study “menstrual cycles in transgender men.”

(Image shows a test Grindr conversation that PolitiFact made using an online generator.)

Additionally, the images purport to show Johnson, who has become well-recognized in Washington, D.C., asking to meet for dinner at The Dabney, a Michelin-starred D.C. restaurant, at the same time he requests the person he is messaging to be "very discreet."

Johnson is a married evangelical Christian who regularly references his faith and has publicly supported anti-LGBTQ+ views and policies. It is highly unlikely given his high profile that he would offer a public extramarital date at a popular restaurant.

We found no evidence to substantiate the authenticity of these messages and several signs they are fake. We rate this claim False.