Entertainment

Do photos shared on Facebook show giant, fantastical creatures that nobles hunted in the forests of Thailand over a century ago, during the reign of King Rama V? No, that's not true: These images are not real photos. They were generated by an artificial intelligence program, such as Midjourney, that uses text-based prompts to produce on request images in a…

Did Pattie Mallette, who became pregnant with Justin Bieber at 17, say it was a result of rape? No, that's not true: While being a survivor of sexual abuse, she does not categorize the moment she conceived her son as rape in her memoir. The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on April 11, 2023. It said: She was…

Did Biggie Smalls predict the COVID-19 pandemic in his 1994 song lyrics? No, that's not true: The rapper, real name Christopher Wallace, did not write about the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak decades before it occurred. The video claiming to show the Notorious B.I.G. singing about COVID uses altered lyrics to his song "Juicy." He never mentioned COVID or the word "pandemic"…

Will former President Barack Obama move to Kenya in June 2023 as a Senate-confirmed special envoy for U.S. diplomacy? No, that's not true: The article that makes this claim has a disclaimer that states it's an April Fool's Day story. Some websites, however, have since published copies of this made-up story without the April Fool's Day disclaimer. The article, published…

Did CNN cut Benjamin Watson off in mid-sentence during an interview because the NFL star started talking about Jesus? No, that's not true: Watson, who was at the time a tight end for the New Orleans Saints, was interviewed via satellite feed by CNN journalist Brooke Baldwin on November 28, 2014. The topic of the interview was not football, but…

Did actor Morgan Freeman make a video criticizing President Joe Biden for talking about ice cream? No, that's not true: This is a deepfake of Freeman. Someone has put on a filter that looks like Freeman's face while also trying to speak like him. The TikTok account that originally posted this video had "Celebrity Impressionist" in the bio. The claim…

Did a virus that turns its host into a zombie get released in China? No, that's not true: This video shows an event put on by the Jakarta Light Rail Transit and an event organizer in Indonesia. Multiple videos on social media also prove that this was organized entertainment. The claim appeared on Instagram on March 26, 2023. The video…

Does a "bombshell letter from Stormy Daniels debunk" Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's pursuit of potential criminal charges against former President Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The statement circulating on social media in March 2023 was first publicly released on January 30, 2018, and was widely reported at that time. Since then, Daniels has said the document is false,…

Does a video on social media show former NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg faking a visit to the International Space Station (ISS) in front of a green screen? No, that's not true: In the original version of the clip, the narrator never identifies the woman in the video as Nyberg. He calls her Paige. One iteration of the video posted by…

Did Pope Francis appear walking on the street wearing a high-fashion white puffer coat? No, that's not true: This image is one of a series of four AI-generated images which were posted on the subreddit forum r/midjourney, "an official subreddit for Midjourney related content." Midjourney is an artificial intelligence program that creates images from natural language prompts. The images were…

Was the "Teletubbies" television show based on a story of four psychotic children who purportedly were abused and who ultimately died horrifying deaths in a mental health institution? No, that's not true: The creators of the show said they were inspired by astronauts from the moon landing in creating their characters and by British comedians. The claim appeared in a…

Does a photo of a helicopter airlifting a large creature show evidence that Bigfoot is real? No, that's not true: This image has been edited. The silhouette of the Bigfoot that appears below the helicopter was pulled from a popular 2006 edited-photo hoax. "The Dead Bigfoot Photo" was debunked in 2015 when the original, unedited photo of an Alaskan hunter…

Did DirecTV, an American video programming distributor, say it "will drop ABC" if the TV channel continues to broadcast "The View," a talk show originally created by Barbara Walters and, of this writing, co-hosted by Whoopi Goldberg? No, that's not true: The story first appeared on a satire website. The claim originated in an article (archived here) published by the…

Does a short video show in reality a lanky extraterrestrial boarding a hovering spaceship in a snowy field before flying away above a Siberian forest? No, that's not true: The animated clip is a cropped version of a science fiction short film that first appeared on social media in early 2018. The claim appeared in a post and video on…

Is the fast-fashion clothing brand SHEIN offering $1,000 in store credit to Facebook users for simply answering four questions? No, that's not true: SHEIN is a real clothing brand but this is not their promotion. The empty promise of store credit is a ruse to get people to enter personal information on a malicious website under the guise of taking…

Is Mickey Mouse "clearly massaging his massive erection" in a video described on social media as an "old @Disney reel"? No, that's not true: A former Disney animator called the short clip a "forgery." The NSFW video takes isolated character elements from the 1928 Disney cartoon "Steamboat Willie" and combines them with new animation to create something that looks like…

Did Albert Einstein say, "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots"? No, that's not true: Archival experts told Lead Stories that there is "no evidence" of such a quote having come from Einstein. Lead Stories found no record of this quote after searching several databases and archival records…

Was a massive "sandy UFO" caught on camera? No, that's not true: This footage is not real; it's special effects graphics in the 2022 sci-fi horror movie "Nope," directed by Jordan Peele. A short video clip was published on Instagram by @yeshuachoseyou on March 7, 2023. It was captioned: yeshuachoseyouHUGE SANDY UFO CAUGHT ON CAMREA ‼️😱🛸🔥 #sand #ufo #ufos #rapture…

Did police in Charlottesville, Virginia pick up a homeless dogcalled Chloe and offer her for adoption when the owner refused to take her back? No, that's not true: The post that makes this claim is deceptively using a picture of a Texas animal rescue to draw readers to a page on Facebook that employs "bait and switch" content to lure…

Is Elon Musk buying Facebook? No, that's not true: The article saying so has a clear disclaimer at the end that reads, "Recall that this is satire and not actual news." The claim originated in an article (archived here) published by Topad.News24.Info website on February 25, 2023, under the title "Breaking: Elon Musk confirms he's buying Facebook." It opened: We…