Did one of the King's Guard in Whitehall, London lash out and punch a disrespectful tourist who was pestering him? No, that's not true: This video is not real. The original video posted on TikTok has a disclaimer included in the caption which identifies this as an "AI edit".
A duplicate copy of the video (archived here) was published on X by @benonwine on Sept. 8, 2025. It was captioned:
Good for the soldier I say! 👏👌👍 🇬🇧
They are serving soldiers doing a job show some respect.
Was this Royal guard justified in giving this disrespectful tourist a whack?
The video contains the @_joe.temo watermark of the TikTok account where it was first published (archived here) on Aug. 15, 2025. The caption on that post reads:
Never Disrespect Kings Guard/ Part 2 AI edit #viralvideo#kingsguard #unitedkingdom #viralvideo #fyi
This is how that post appeared at the time of writing:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot of @_joe.temo post on TikTok)
The @_joe.temo account on TikTok (pictured below) features thumbnails of three additional videos with a similar "fed up guard" theme. Each video featuring a different tourist and a different guard, has a scene where the pesky tourist pats the front of the guard's helmet. These videos seem to have been generated with prompts that were similar, if not identical. The captions, all containing AI disclaimers, suggest they depict guards in India (archived here), in London, and in Fiji (archived here).
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot of @_joe.temo account on TikTok)
Other fact checks
A different video with a similar theme was investigated by Snopes.com. In that case the video was a skit played by actors and was not AI-generated.
