Did Bruce Springsteen, Cher, Joni Mitchell and dozens of other celebrities each buy the small diner where they ate for free while struggling and now feed free meals to 120 homeless people every day? No, that's not true: 54 virtually identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There were no news articles about such diner purchases and many of the stories used the exact same photo for the diner owner, though young Springsteen would have been in New Jersey and Cher in California.
One of several Springsteen versions appeared in a Jan. 6, 2026 post (archived here) where it was published on the Working Man's Anthem page under the title "🚨 BREAKING NEWS. It opened:
Bruce Springsteen has quietly purchased the small diner where he once ate on credit during the hardest years of his life -- and now it serves free meals to 120 homeless people every single day.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122119341993056316&set=a.122100057321056316.)
Working Man's Anthem (archived here) had a page transparency tab (archived here) indicating it was run from Vietnam and the United States:
(Image source: screenshot of the page transparency tab of the "Working Man's Anthem" 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 that country here.
Lead Stories searched the Google News index of thousands of news sites for articles mentioning "quietly purchased the small diner", "free meals to 120 homeless people" and "Springsteen" and it did not return any results (archived here). Removing Springsteen's name to broaden the search also yielded no stories. The prominence of many of the celebrities' would make such a purchase and a feeding program newsworthy if it were really happening.
The Facebook post linked to a story (archived here) that included the following passage:
Bruce Springsteen Quietly Buys the New Jersey Diner That Once Fed Him on Credit -- and Turns It Into a Daily Lifeline for 120 Homeless Neighbors
A search for "diner" and "free meals" on Springsteen's Facebook page did not return any results (archived here).
A search on Facebook for the phrase "quietly buys the small-town diner where she once struggled" (archived here) brought up 54 results. Those were almost exactly the same story but about different celebrities and athletes, often accompanied by the identical picture of an elderly woman described as the cafe owner, plus the identical picture of a restaurant dining room.
Lead Stories found posts involving:
- Rock star Jon Bon Jovi;
- Country singer Ella Langley;
- Country singer Riley Green;
- Movie star Kurt Russell;
- Bluegrass mandolin player Rhonda Vincent;
- President Trump's son Barron;
- Country star Tanya Tucker;
- Country star Miranda Lambert;
- Country star Randy Owen;
- Rock star Jimmy Page;
- Country star Dolly Parton;
- Country star Vince Gill;
- Country singer John Foster;
- Pro basketball player Devin Booker;
- College basketball coach Tommy Lloyd;
- Pro football player Xavier McKinney;
- Pop star Celine Dion;
- College basketball coach Pat Kelsey;
- Metal star James Hetfield;
- Rock star Eric Clapton;
- Pro football player Caleb Williams;
- Pro football player Aaron Rodgers;
- Worship music star Brandon Lake;
- Country star Morgan Wallen;
- Movie star Dick Van Dyke;
- Country star Trisha Yearwood;
- Broadcaster Rylan Clark;
- College basketball star Audi Crooks;
- Folk star Joan Baez;
- College basketball star Cameron Boozer;
- Pro football star Jalen Hurts;
- Country singer Cameron McCreery;
- Retired pro football player Peyton Manning;
- Rock star Mick Jagger;
- Pro football player Drake Maye;
- Pro football player Dak Prescott;
- Country star Trace Adkins;
- Country star Luke Bryan;
- Pro football player Xavier Worthy;
- Pro football player Travis Kelce;
- Pro hockey player Connor Bedard;
- Pro football player Daniel Jones;
- Former college football coach Nick Saban;
- Pro football player C.J. Stroud;
- Pro football player Kirk Cousins;
- Pro football player Baker Mayfield;
- Pro basketball player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander;
- College football player Dante Moore;
- College football player Trinidad Chambliss;
- Pro football player Lamar Jackson;
- College football coach Deion Sanders;
- College football player Ty Simpson;
- College football player Joey Aguilar;
- Movie star Kevin Costner.
Here's what those search results look like in an auto-scrolling GIF:
(Image source: animation of Facebook search results for the phrase "quietly buys the small-town diner where she once struggled."
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'"
