In March 2025, users claimed actor, artist and comedian Jim Carrey — whose name often appears online as the attribution for various quotes — once said or wrote about grief being an “unraveling.” The in-question quote began, “Grief is not just an emotion — it’s an unraveling, a space where something once lived but is now gone. It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.”

For example, on March 17, a manager of the Facebook page One More Day posted (archived) the lengthy quote with a picture of Carrey carrying the casket of ex-girlfriend Cathriona White at her funeral in Ireland in 2015. The post received over 227,000 reactions, 20,000 comments and 127,000 shares. Other users also shared the quote on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Threads, TikTok and X, as well as in a well-intentioned comment under an obituary.

Although Carrey might agree with the message about grief, numerous online searches produced no credible evidence of the actor ever saying the quoted words. Users who incorrectly attributed the quote to Carrey did so beginning no earlier than mid-March 2025, meaning no record of the quote — with or without his name — existed prior to that point in time. Additionally, scans of the full quote suggested someone generated some or all of its five paragraphs using an artificial-intelligence (AI) tool.

A representative for Carrey had not yet responded to an emailed request for comment.

Researching the quote about grief

The full quote posted on the One More Day Facebook page, and by other users, read as follows:

Jim Carrey once said: Grief is not just an emotion — it’s an unraveling, a space where something once lived but is now gone. It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.

In the beginning, it feels unbearable, like a wound that will never close. But over time, the raw edges begin to mend. The pain softens, but the imprint remains — a quiet reminder of what once was. The truth is, you never truly “move on.” You move with it. The love you had does not disappear; it transforms. It lingers in the echoes of laughter, in the warmth of old memories, in the silent moments where you still reach for what is no longer there. And that’s okay.

Grief is not a burden to be hidden. It is not a weakness to be ashamed of. It is the deepest proof that love existed, that something beautiful once touched your life. So let yourself feel it. Let yourself mourn. Let yourself remember.

There is no timeline, no “right” way to grieve. Some days will be heavy, and some will feel lighter. Some moments will bring unexpected waves of sadness, while others will fill you with gratitude for the love you were lucky enough to experience.

Honor your grief, for it is sacred. It is a testament to the depth of your heart. And in time, through the pain, you will find healing — not because you have forgotten, but because you have learned how to carry both love and loss together.

Searches of DuckDuckGo, Facebook, Google, Google Books, Newspapers.com, X and YouTube turned up no evidence of Carrey saying the quote.

One search result displayed by DuckDuckGo, but not Google, revealed the earliest available posting on March 16. On that day, a user managing the Coach Mantas Facebook page posted (archived) the 5-paragraph quote with Carrey’s name. The page’s lone manager did not respond to a request for comment.

Scans of the full quote on five AI-detection websites all concluded that someone generated either a majority of, or all of, the text using an AI tool. Services consulted included Copyleaks, ZeroGPT, GPTZero, QuillBot and Scribbr. Such AI-detection websites do not provide fully reliable confirmation of AI usage. Rather, they exist as additional data points in the research process, allowing users to draw likelihoods — not firm conclusions — about the origins of written words.

For further reading, a previous fact check examined a quote about “toxic people” that users shared with fellow actor Keanu Reeves’ name. According to research, the earliest available posting of the quote also appeared on the Coach Mantas Facebook page.