95-Year-Old William Shatner Has Had Enough: 'Get a Life!'
William Shatner has had enough. The 95-year-old Star Trek legend took to Facebook this week to shut down a spreading online rumor that claimed he had secretly met with Paramount and CBSexecutives to discuss Star Trek or the recently canceled series Starfleet Academy. His message was blunt and characteristically pointed.
'For those of you chasing the latest YouTube and TikTok 'inside scoop' about me and a secret sit-down with Paramount/CBS regarding Star Trek or Starfleet Academy,' Shatner wrote, 'please do yourselves a favor and revisit my old SNL advice: Get a Life.'
He was unambiguous about the facts. 'No such meeting ever happened,' he wrote. 'Not to my knowledge, not in reality, and certainly not on this planet.'
https://www.facebook.com/williamshatner/posts/pfbid0brMfzo5fYwj2HAEJ2WRG6rN2bPCUvKQi5hGNKMTebjntKaAPkCweD8Du9cspGk41l?__cft__[0]=AZaECNQ6LPy0Pz85GNI8HYGunHztoBR3H2u1hctvicz9_FAmXEqO0e9RB8P4VzpSCUYlKQSL5Bm18sNRV--W-RZMFBniOcYlfD-GKkE0iWEe_-zun7HYdjs8nq72m_Fg3aI7A4TpSNvWOQBlG7oG6tdgnR48ObT1YMh1TjVezMQ7ZA&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
The reference to his SNL advice is well-known to Trek fans and non-fans alike. On December 20, 1986, Shatner hosted Saturday Night Live and performed a now-legendary sketch set at a Star Trek convention, in which he told assembled fans, 'Get a life, will you people? For crying out loud, it's just a TV show.' It became one of the most quoted moments of his career, eventually lending its title to his 1999 memoir.
The rumor Shatner was swatting down this week appears to have circulated primarily through YouTube and TikTok, where AI-generated content dressed up as insider reporting claimed he and other original Star Trek cast members had confronted Paramount executives over Starfleet Academy. Various versions portrayed the alleged meeting as a dramatic showdown over the direction of the franchise. None of it was true.
Related: William Shatner Has a History Lesson for Everyone Calling Cancelled Star Trek 'Too Woke'
Shatner saved his sharpest words not for the people who spread the story. 'What is real is a cottage industry of fiction dressed up as factual stories engineered by AI for clicks, views, and profit,' he wrote. 'Far too many of you are taking the bait.'
Earlier this month, Shatner was forced to address a separate and crueler hoax, fabricated AI-generated posts falsely claiming he was dying of Stage 4 brain cancer. He wrote on X that a Facebook group had been 'using AI to create horrible fake news stories' about his health, including fake images of him in a hospital bed, and that 'all their stories are monetized.' The false cancer posts spread widely enough to reach his daughter Lisabeth, who came to his home to check on him in person. Shatner posted a photo his daughter took of him to prove he was healthy, writing, 'I'm fit as a fiddle. You don't have to worry.'
Shatner ended his post on this latest false rumor with a note of genuine disappointment directed at the fandom itself. 'What disappoints me most isn't the nonsense,' he wrote. 'It's the eagerness to believe it, and the hostility it stirs up in a fandom that was built on something far better.' His closing advice was simple: if you don't like something, don't watch it. Spend your time with what you enjoy.
The post drew more than 22,000 likes within 20 hours.
Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 8:13 AM.