Did Cher tell Karoline Leavitt to "sit down, baby girl" after reading out her bio on MSNBC? No, that's not true: The viral story about the singer reacting to a supposed rant from Leavitt about "out-of-touch celebrities who think they can lecture America" originated on a network of websites and Facebook pages run from Vietnam. It contained verifiably false details.…
Did Karoline Leavitt or someone else tweet "You Need To Shut Up" at various celebrities and did they all react during a "live show" with millions of viewers? No, that's not true: Dozens of variations of the same story but mentioning different celebrities were posted by a network of Facebook pages and websites operated from Vietnam. Leavitt's personal and official…
Were President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama or TV host Jimmy Kimmel silenced after calling Harvard grads "overrated and dumb" when opponents revealed their SAT scores? No, that's not true: There is no public record of Trump, Obama or Kimmel saying it. There is also no record of anyone confronting those men with their SAT scores. Facebook pages administered…
Did Zohran Mamdani, Melania Trump, Sen. John Kennedy or other prominent Americans go live with a 3 a.m. emergency monologue claiming they were under threat for secrets they were about to expose about President Donald Trump or former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a…
Did White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempt to explain the presence of Donald Trump's last name in the newly released Epstein files by saying that it was "another person with the same name", not a reference to Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States? No, that's not true: The rumor originated from a self-described satire…
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"…
Did White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt describe the ballroom construction at the White House as President Trump's "main priority"? Yes, she did, but social media posts took the quote out of context. When Leavitt said "the ballroom is really the President's main priority", she was not addressing the overall state of affairs in the country or abroad. Leavitt was…
Did Donald Trump (or another famous person) dismiss the achievements of Dick Van Dyke (or some other celebrity) by saying, "He's just a dancer." (or some other talent)? No, that's not true: This story about a broadcast studio turning into a "televised earthquake" is nothing but a formulaic structure to pair the names and pictures of some famous people for…
Did a variety of celebrities, from Fifty Cent to the White House press secretary, respond with public comments after Bad Bunny joked on Saturday Night Live that Americans had four months to learn Spanish before his Super Bowl halftime appearance? No, that's not true: This is a fake controversy drummed up by a network of clickbait publishers overseas. A flood…
Did Singer Patti LaBelle silence Karoline Leavitt using just "seven words" in a viral video clip that was recorded off live TV? No, that's not true: The story was made up by a foreign clickbait farm, online searches brought up no such video. Very similar stories using the names of other celebrities have been spread by spammy networks like these…
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
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