A rumor that Bob Ross, a popular TV personality and artist, was a serial killer revealing the locations of his victims’ bodies through his paintings has circulated online with regularity for a decade.
Prior to his death in 1995, Ross hosted “The Joy of Painting,” a wholesome instructional painting show that aired on PBS from 1983 to 1994. The series ran for 403 episodes.
The rumor circulated heavily on TikTok, with one user posting a video alleging to show Ross’ paintings corresponding with crime scenes. One user responded, “He draws nature so yes out of thousands of murder cases some are bound too [sic] look a little like his paintings.” Somebody else replied, “Just bc he painted those mean he’s a killer, [sic] he could’ve just did it to honor the lives that were lost.”
@jude_holben No, just no. #bobross #killer? #bobrosskiller #fyp ♬ Its just a cigarette and it cannot be that bad – Jude Holben
Some users also posted to X about the rumor, with one saying, “I love the internet. Today it’s told me: Bob Ross was a serial killer and his paintings where [sic] locations where he’d buried bodies.” Another X user echoed this statement, posting, “Bob Ross was a serial killer and his paintings are where he hid the bodies.” In October 2023, the YouTube channel Conspiracy Central posted a lengthy video about the claim.
The rumor was also popular on Reddit, with one user posting the same video from the TikTok shared above, saying, “Something to think about.” Another Reddit post featured an image spreading the rumor with a user adding, “Thanks I hate that knowing Bob Ross could have been a serial killer.”
However, Snopes found the claim to be unfounded. Among other evidence, no credible news outlet has ever reported on this rumor, an infinitely newsy topic if it were true.
The rumor appears to have originated in 2014 with a post to the subreddit r/ShowerThoughts that was then shared to r/WritingPrompts, a forum for users to help each other spark ideas for fiction writing. It did not gain much online traction until it was re-posted to the same forum two years later, where it had 13,000 upvotes as of this writing.
The claim has become an internet urban legend of sorts with imaginative users sharing creative narratives.
In 2021, Netflix released a documentary about Ross and his career called “Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed,” directed by Joshua Rofé. Despite the incendiary title, the documentary mostly supported viewers’ long-held beliefs that Ross was kindhearted and good-natured, though not without some infidelity in his personal life.
It did, however, expose the darker conflict over Ross’ estate after his death between the artist’s family and his business partners, Annette and Walt Kowalski (who declined to be interviewed for the film).
Snopes has previously covered claims pertaining to Ross, including the artist allegedly having a “cocaine fingernail,” a real photograph of the artist from his time in the U.S. Air Force and a purported photo of Mr. Rogers wearing a Bob Ross T-shirt while hanging out with Steve Irwin.