Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-31672013-20180826005107/@comment-3523655-20180826033956

Yeah

This has never been confirmed and as such is basically a theory. A perfectly valid one, but a theory nonetheless. Unless Kishi himself comes out and says Jiraiya used clones, then we haven't seen him either use them or mention them, then he didn't use them.

Also, I seem to remember Fukasaku mentioning the clone thing was Naruto's own idea.