Did Paul McCartney, Steven Tyler, J.K. Rowling, and Mick Jagger say "I see the world being corrupted by Gayness"? No, that's not true: The quote about Paralympic sprinter Valentina Petrillo was made up and attached to those four celebrities in a series of click-bait of social media posts manufactured by a spam factory in Vietnam. AI tools and fake Facebook fan pages are used to spread the fake content to North American and European audiences.
The claims appeared in dozens of posts, including this a post (archived here) linking Paul McCartney to the quote published on November 17, 2025. The caption opened:
'I see the world being corrupted by gayness- - Paul McCartney shocks the world as the only celebrity brave enough to call out trans Paralympian Valentina Petrillo.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Nov 19 04:45:19 2025 UTC)
The McCartney version continued:
In a statement that has taken the internet by storm, Sir Paul McCartney has become the only major celebrity to publicly criticize transgender Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo, the 50-year-old athlete who won gold and bronze in the women's T12 200m and 400m at the Paris 2024 Paralympics.
Posting on his X account to nearly 70 million followers, the former Beatle wrote:
"I see the world being corrupted by gayness. Valentina Petrillo is a cheater. A man competing against women is still a man, no matter what he calls himself. This is exactly like the Imane Khelif case - a blatant cheat."
A search of McCartney's X account for "Valentina" or "gayness" unsurprisingly found no posts about Valentina Petrillo or gayness.
Almost identical posts were made using the names and images of author J.K. Rowling, and rock stars Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler. In each post, it was claimed that this person "is the only celebrity who has publicly criticized transgender Paralympic sprinter Valentina Petrillo."
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshots of Facebook)
Lead Stories has published a primer -- or a prebunk -- on how to identify these kinds of fake posts exported from Vietnam. It's titled Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam'
