Disney

Did a scene from an episode of "The Simpsons" predict Hurricane Milton by showing that name on-screen during a Kent Brockman news broadcast segment? No, that's not true: A clip from the episode was altered to add the words "Hurricane Milton," a storm that made landfall in October 2024. The actual episode featured a storm named Hurricane Barbara. The claim…

Do viral images authentically capture the massive destruction caused by Hurricane Milton at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida? No, that's not true: Those pictures were generated by AI and first posted on a website with a satire label. On October 11, 2024, Disney announced it had reopened its theme parks. The claim appeared in a video (archived here)…

Did the CEO of ABC hint that the network may cancel "The View," saying "It's time to end a show that's lost its relevance"? No, that's not true: The website that originally reported this comes with a satire label. Neither ABC itself nor news websites have published anything about the ABC CEO hinting about a potential cancellation and some of…

Did Michael Jordan reject a $400 million offer from Disney, saying he does not "collaborate with companies aligned with woke ideologies"? No, that's not true: An AI detector found that the article that said so was 99.9 percent likely to be AI-generated. The media didn't report that Jordan or his representatives rejected an offer from Disney. The claim appeared in…

Does a scene from an episode of "The Simpsons" show that Lisa Simpson would win an election against former President Donald Trump? No, that's not true: An image from an episode in which Trump did not appear was altered to substitute Trump's likeness, including the bandage he wore after a July, 2024 assassination attempt. The episode actually features a different,…

Did Disney and Google buy the rights to the first King James Version of the Bible? No, that's not true: No sources are cited in the Instagram post where the claim is stated. The claim first appeared in a 2018 article from The Babylon Bee, a well-known satirical website. Lead Stories could not find any supporting evidence that would corroborate…

Did entrepreneur Elon Musk discuss in an interview a theory that holds "every single Disney princess is supposed to... represent a disorder", as shown in a video on TikTok? No, that's not true: As of this publication, there's no evidence that Musk talked about that subject in any recorded interview. Additionally, digital forensics and a deepfake-testing website, which analyzes audio,…

Did Disney cut Tinker Bell from meet-and-greets on the basis that she has a "problematic" image? No, that's not true: A Disney spokesperson told Lead Stories that Tinker Bell is a "beloved character, and she continues to appear in all of our parks around the world." The spokesperson said they had no record of a "Disney rep" making the claim…

Does the "real" story of Pinocchio include the details that Gepetto was a slave master who made a puppet from the skin and hair of human slaves? No, that's not true: The fictional story is about a puppet made from an enchanted piece of wood. Gepetto was not a slave master. The story was written by Carlo Collodi in installments…

Was Walt Disney a founder of NASA? No, that's not true: Disney founded an animation, television and movie studio as well as a theme park empire. He produced a television series about space travel in 1955 with a NASA rocket designer. This was three years before President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which…