Do images in a social media post show rapper Boosie celebrating Pride Day in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana? No, that's not true: These pictures have been created using artificial intelligence. An AI content detector assessed that there is a 99.5 percent chance that these images were likely to be AI-generated. A Google News search also did not find reports that could back up this claim about a public figure who has been outspoken about his opposition to the LGBTQ+ community joining in Pride celebrations.
The claim appeared on Facebook (archived here) where it was published on October 2, 2023. The caption read:
They Got Boosie Downtown Baton Rouge Celebrating Pride Day
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Oct 5 14:20:15 2023 UTC)
The rapper has been outspoken about his opposition to the LGBTQ+ community in the past, even revealing that he turned out a $250,000 paycheck to perform at a Pride event, according to a September 26, 2023, XXL Magazine article (archived here).
Boosie, on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account, responded to the claim about being at a Pride Day event (archived here) with this October 5, 2023, post:
😂😂😂AT THIS POINT YALL TRYING TO BULLY ME FOR A RESPONSE SMH ‼️NEW ALBUM GTST "DELUXE 10/6 NEW MOVIE "NO HONOR LOYALTY OR LOVE " 11/14 pic.twitter.com/0E0qGRo63r
-- Boosie BadAzz (@BOOSIEOFFICIAL) October 5, 2023
We have reached out to Boosie's representatives to see if we could get a more concrete answer. We will update this article if a relevant response is received.
Lead Stories used Hive Moderation, an AI-generated content detector, to check and see if this was AI-generated. Hive Moderation assessed that there is a 99.5 percent chance that these images were likely to be AI-generated. Here is a screenshot of the results:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Thu Oct 5 15:05:11 2023 UTC)
A Google News search of the phrase, "Boosie AND Baton Rouge AND Pride Day" (archived here) did not result in a legitimate news article that could corroborate this claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on LGBTQ+ issues are here.
