Did CNN report that actor Tom Hanks converted to Judaism and fled to Israel as a result of the Jeffrey Epstein contacts list being revealed? No, that's not true: A CNN spokesperson told Lead Stories the post making the claim is "clearly fabricated and manipulated and not something that ever aired on CNN." A video clip included in the claim is of Hanks dancing at a 2014 Jewish wedding.
The claim (archived here) appeared on X, formerly Twitter, on January 2, 2024. The post read:
🚨BREAKING🚨 Tom Hanks converts to Judaism and flees to Israel following the release of the Epstein client list. Sources say he was greeted with a massive welcome celebration upon his arrival.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
A fake CNN chyron is in the lower third of the video, reading, "BREAKING NEWS TOM HANKS CONVERTS TO JUDAISM AND FLEES TO ISRAEL FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF THE EPSTEIN CLIENT LIST." Lead Stories searched CNN's website for a news report with this claim and could not find one (archived here). A search of the keywords "Tom Hanks AND converts to Judaism AND flees to Israel" (archived here) using Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites did not reveal any factual reports for this claim either.
Lead Stories reached out to CNN regarding the claim. Emily Kuhn (archived here), a CNN spokesperson, responded in a January 4, 2024, email, writing, "The video is clearly fabricated and manipulated and not something that ever aired on CNN."
A reverse image search (archived here) of a screenshot of the video led to a Daily Mail article (archived here) from July 8, 2014, titled, "Justin Bieber films Tom Hanks getting down on the dance floor to Montell Jordan's R&B classic at Scooter Braun's wedding" (archived here). A The Times of Israel article (archived here) from July 9, 2014, corroborates the Daily Mail's story. Braun, who was Justin Bieber's manager at the time of the wedding, is Jewish, according to The Times of Israel.
Other Lead Stories articles on Tom Hanks are here.
