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Did your favorite sports star "shock fans" or "shake" the league by "publicly" or "flatly" refusing to wear an LGBT Rainbow Armband because it would turn the game "into a political circus"? No, that's not true: The claim was made about at least 95 football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and hockey players in posts published on dozens of fake Facebook fan…

Did TV host Johnny Carson comfort dying woman Barbara Martinez while taping the March 17, 1983, episode of NBC's Tonight Show? No, that's not true: Social media posts about it did not include the actual recording of the purported event, sharing an AI-generated image instead. Lead Stories found no credible sources ever mentioning the supposed dance, and the Library of…

Does a video show a real scuffle in front of a Grand Central Market between a Cherokee woman and an ICE Agent? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated and was recaptioned for additional ragebaiting effect. It is one of a series of AI-generated videos made with the same, or nearly identical prompts that show a similar clash in…

Does this viral video clip show Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis saying Renee Good had the right to drive away from ICE officers just before one of them shot and killed her on a Minneapolis street? No, that's not true: The clip is real, but was lifted from a June, 2025 appearance on "The Rubin Report" podcast, six months before Good…

Did Barbra Streisand just announce a massive donation while accepting a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at a Los Angeles gala in front of various tech titans, billionaires and powerful people? No, that's not true: The exact same story, often accompanied by an image or a mention of Mark Zuckerberg, has been posted about dozens of celebrities by a network of sites…

Did the FBI discover a secret tunnel under Rob Reiner's Brentwood mansion? No, that's not true: There is no credible information to support this claim. The day after Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered, clickbait videos began to surface on YouTube claiming the FBI found a tunnel under their home. Some of these videos had titles identical to…

Did President Trump really post a message on Truth Social saying Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered "reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS?" Yes, he did: The post appeared on the president's timeline at…

Did the Los Angeles Police Department charge "Daniel Reed" for sexual harassment for grabbing "Jessica Moore" to pull her back from the path of a speeding car? No, that's not true: The video showing a man grabbing a woman before she is hit by a car is from a 2020 incident in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Instagram video that carries the…

Is there a rising number of $2.8 million statues erected or underway to honor people like Dolly Parton, George Strait, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Clinton, Shania Twain, Jimmy Page, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Waltz King André Rieu, and others? No, that's not true: Multiple social media posts using nearly identical language and the $2.8M figure have cranked out the story to appeal…

This is what fact checkers call a "prebunk." A prebunk is like a debunk (another word for fact check), only it's an advance notice of an anticipated false claim. This article is intended to inoculate you from future outbreaks of a specific type of false claims about your favorite entertainment celebrities, sports stars, and politicians. We call this "Viet Spam"…