Fake News: Meryl Streep Did NOT Get Fired From A Major Project For Lying About Trump

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk

After Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes criticizing President Elect Donald Trump several fake news sites published an article claiming she had been fired from a 'major project' because of it. LeadStories' Trendolizer engine picked up the fact that the fake stories started trending so we decided to investigate.

According to the fake article a remake of the popular seventies series "Happy Days" was in the works and Streep had been cast in it but director/actor Ron Howard who played Richie Cunningham in the original run had to fire her because of her remarks at the Golden Globes. The new version of the show was further described like this:

Streep was to team up with Otis Winslow of "Family Matters" so Happy Days could be written into this century, with multi-racial families, gender identity and the gays playing a role in the plotlines. Ron Howard was to take on the role of Richie Cunningham once again, and other original actors include the guys who play Potsie and Malph, a cameo by Henry Winkler while Jon Voight plays Fonzie and an attractive guy who isn't worth less than the chick from Charles In Charge plays Chachi, who now loves a guy named Jeff. Scot Baio had to be ejected from auditions when he found out he didn't get the part.

It would be very weird for a show that is described as liberal/progressive as this to fire someone for being anti-Trump, which is a first hint that the article might be totally made up. A second hint comes in the form of these recent tweets by Ron Howard, praising Meryl Streep for what she did:

Doesn't exactly sound like someone who would fire her over this speech. If there even is a project to be fired from to begin with: the only news we were able to find about a "Happy Days" reboot happening came from a satirical website.

Despite the obvious clues: check out how fast fake news like this can spread by looking at this graph (created using data from Trendolizer):


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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