Did Cher, Patrick Mahomes, Bono and other celebrities pull business deals with Amazon over founder Jeff Bezos' "quiet alignment with Trump," sending messages to Bezos that all began "Wake up, Jeff"? No, that's not true: The posts tell nearly identical stories featuring those and dozens of other famous names. The clickbait fictions were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. No credible news articles corroborated the posts and one person purportedly quitting Amazon was already dead when Amazon was founded in 1994.
The Cher version appeared in a Dec. 20, 2025 Facebook post (archived here) on the Melody Avenue page under the title "Wake up, Jeff." It opened:
Cher suddenly announced that she would pull all of her entertainment-related media partnerships and brand collaborations from Amazon, criticizing Jeff Bezos' quiet alignment with Trump. The statement quickly became an ultimatum that stunned both Bezos and the public."You support Trump, you support hate. I cannot be a part of that," Cher declared in a firm message shared through her official channels. Bezos, caught completely off guard, was left speechless by the legendary artist's unwavering conviction.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Melody Avenue page on Facebook.)
The Facebook page "Melody Avenue" used to promote the story had a page transparency tab indicating it was run by Facebook users from Vietnam and the Philippines:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of the page transparency tab of the "Melody Avenue" page on Facebook.)
The Vietnam connection is significant, since fact-checkers, including Lead Stories, have identified a major source of AI-generated false stories coming from a single operation based in that Southeast Asian country. You can see recent reporting and fact checks mentioning similar connections to Vietnam here.
A Google News search for news articles mentioning "Wake up, Jeff","partnerships and brand collaborations from Amazon" and "Bezos' quiet alignment with Trump" did not return any results (archived here). Adding Cher's name did not change the search results.
The Melody Avenue Facebook post linked to a story on momentum.feji.io, a Vietnam-based website (archived here) that included the passage found in some form in all the stories:
"Wake υp, Jeff."
With jυst three words, Cher triggered oпe of the most explosive cυltυral momeпts the eпtertaiпmeпt world has seeп iп years.
A search for "Wake up, Jeff" on Cher's X account did not return any results (archived here).
But, a search on Facebook for the phrase "Wake up, Jeff" (archived here) brought up dozens of Facebook posts telling almost exactly the same story, each about different celebrities, athletes and politicians, accompanied by a headshot of each celebrity paired with a photo of Trump.
Lead Stories found posts involving:
- Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney, dead since 1988;
- NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.;
- Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes;
- Actor Derek Hough;
- Comedian Adam Sandler;
- Singer Susan Boyle;
- Rockstar Bob Dylan;
- Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt;
- University of Oregon President Karl Scholz;
- ESPN sportscaster Nick Saban;
- Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones;
- Rockstar Paul Stanley;
- Tennis champion Novak Djokovic;
- Swedish singer/songwriter Agnetha Fältskog;
- Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie
- Swedish singer/songwriter Björn Ulvaeus;
- Queen of Funk Chaka Khan;
- Retired football star Troy Aikman;
- Retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman;
- Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti;
- Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson;
- Rockstar Mick Jagger;
- Film star Dick Van Dyke;
- Film star Johnny Depp;
- Rockstar Bruce Springsteen;
- Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza;
- Rocker Yungblud;
- Film star Robert De Niro;
- Rapper and music producer Snoop Dogg;
- Podcaster Candace Owens;
- English rocker Hank Marvin;
- Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis;
- Folk singer Joan Baez;
- Rockstar Jimmy Page;
- Singer and actress Barbra Streisand;
- Country star Alan Jackson;
- HipHop star Cardi B;
- Country star Vince Gill;
- Rapper Jelly Roll;
- Martial artist Islam Makhachev;
- Tennis champion Jannik Sinner;
- Golf legend Tiger Woods;
- Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen;
- Tennis champion Coco Gauff;
- University of Colorado Boulder head football coach Deion Sanders;
- Basketball legend and NASCAR team owner Michael Jordan;
- Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin;
- Detroit Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson;
- Rockstar Jon Bon Jovi;
Here's a GIF that displays the posts found on Facebook:
(Image source: animation of Facebook search results for the phrase "Wake up, Jeff".)
Other signs of inauthentic or rule-bending content:
The Melody Avenue page sends readers to a story on momentum.feji.io, where the Cher story headline and article itself is full of homoglyphs, marked below in pink.
Homoglyphs are text characters that resemble letters from the Latin alphabet but are actually characters from another alphabet. This is a common tactic for bypassing AI detectors. In the sample below the lowercase "n" and "u" are represented by look-alike characters from Cyrillic or Greek:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot, with pink highlighting added, of post at the https://momentum.feji.io/ web page.)
There are several reasons bad actors might use homoglyphs, for example to avoid search engine or ad network blocking, or plagiarism detection -- but there are no reasons why a legitimate news outlet would do this.
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'"
