Hollywood

Was a "ritual" tape showing actor Will Smith and rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs having sex leaked in September 2024? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that a sex tape of Smith and Diddy exists. The post that made this claim offered no proof that it does. No actual news websites have published anything about a leaked tape showing…

Did Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Elton John endorse Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential race? No, that's not true: Video clips of Johnson and John do not show either one of them having said that they endorse Trump for the 2024 presidential election, as of this writing on September 10, 2024. The two celebrities described Trump as a fan…

Does a photo on Facebook really show Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in blackface? No, that's not true: This image came from the Facebook account for a satirical website that labels itself as all about fake content. The photo in the post is of actor John Slattery, not Walz. The photo appeared in a post on Facebook on August…

Did Mel Gibson accuse Oprah Winfrey of selling children? No, that's not true: "None of this is true," Gibson's longtime publicist told Lead Stories. The post offered no evidence for the claim that the Hollywood actor was "gearing up" to confront Winfrey. Had Gibson done so it would have been extensively covered by the news media. The claim appeared in…

Did Universal Studios first introduce the concept of the world as a globe in 1927 before NASA had photographed it from space in the 1960s? No, that's not true on several counts: It did not take NASA's space program to discover that the Earth was round. Greek philosophers had already described the Earth as a sphere as early as the…

Did movie star Clint Eastwood return all six of his Oscars and denounce Hollywood as "morally bankrupt?" No, that's not true: The account that made the claim is part of a network of self-described "parody, satire and tomfoolery" websites that completely make up stories. Eastwood has only won five Academy Awards and there are no reputable news outlets reporting that…

Did Sylvester Stallone withdraw from a movie project with Robert DeNiro, calling him "woke" and "creepy"? No, that's not true: The website that originally posted the article making the claim labels the story "Hollywood satire." Stallone's lawyer told Lead Stories the article is "a completely false and fabricated story." And there is no corroborating evidence that Stallone gave up a…

Did American actor Chris Evans sign a live bomb in 2016 in a photo op? No, that's not true: The object the "Captain America" actor signed was not an explosive device, but a replica, an inert training aid. The actor was at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey on a USO tour with several other entertainers on December 5, 2016. When…

Does a viral video show actor Harrison Ford advocating for Palestine? No, that's not true: A fragment of his speech was taken out of context. Ford was discussing the Amazon rainforest at a 2019 United Nations climate event, over four years before the Hamas-Israel war that began on October 7, 2023. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on…

Did Keanu Reeves reject a $1.7 billion "woke" movie offer after saying "woke mind virus should be destroyed," as a social media post claimed? No, that's not true: The claim was first published on a self-described satire website, and an analysis using a third-party tool determined that it was 99.9 percent likely to be an AI-generated story. The article was…