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Rest in peace, Chuck Norris<\/a>, the original meme.<\/p>\n The legendary figure died<\/a> on Thursday at 86, but his legacy will forever live on through Chuck Norris facts<\/a>. The Walker, Texas Ranger<\/em> star was a lot of things: a military veteran, a black belt in multiple forms of martial arts, an action hero, and a true American badass. But he’s also the person that the Boogeyman checks in the closet for, who beat the sun in a staring contest, and who doesn’t breathe \u2014 he holds the air hostage. Or at least those are some of the “facts” that the internet has created about Norris.<\/p>\n In 2005, high school senior Ian Spector was playing around online when he became inspired by a list of fake Vin Diesel<\/a> facts, and he soon came up with the idea to create a site built around insane “truths” about Norris and his tough guy persona. An internet phenomenon was born. Spector even got the chance to meet Norris once the trend exploded.<\/p>\n “He wasn’t as tall as you would think,” he told ESPN<\/a> in 2023. “But he still stood there in a way where he could have definitely killed anybody else in the room.” Fact!<\/p>\n Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our\u00a0EW Dispatch newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A few years removed from the end of Walker, Texas Ranger<\/em> and even longer from his action-star era, Norris quickly embraced<\/a> his sudden resurgence in pop culture<\/a>. In 2006, he appeared on The Best Damn Sports Show Period<\/em> and read a list of Norris facts, including his personal favorite: “They wanted to put Chuck Norris’ face on Mt. Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t hard enough for his beard.”<\/p>\n While Spector wrote multiple books about the Norris anecdotes, the man himself got in on it too, penning a\u00a02009 autobiography<\/a>\u00a0of sorts that combined his favorite “facts” with real-life stories.<\/p>\n In 2026, there’s a meme for everything and everyone, whether you’re Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin James, or Kermit the Frog. But Norris launched a thousand memes and jokes, to the point that, even in his passing, his aura and strength live on.<\/p>\n Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n