Does a viral clip show the real Erika Kirk dancing next to a highway sign renaming a road after her late husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk? No, that's not true: The video is a product of generative AI. It featured shape-shifting hands, pants that blended in and separated from a boot within seconds and a fictitious name for the agency that supposedly made the designation.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on February 22, 2026. It cited another entry on X that read:
The Arizona Senate has passed a bill to rename a highway to the 'Charlie Kirk Highway'. If Arizona's governor signs this bill, the newly-named Charlie Kirkway will be 78 miles long.
In response to that, the poster of the claim reviewed in this article shared a video that purported to show Erika Kirk dancing in front of a sign for the "Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway." This is what the clip looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
Lead Stories closely examined the video and found multiple signs strongly pointing to AI.
Morphing
Shapeshifting of body parts and objects is one of the most typical glitches found in AI clips. The video from X offers more than one example of it.
In one frame, we see the woman's hands taking an anatomically incorrect shape:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
In another frame, we observe the ends of her hair suddenly changing their texture to become unrealistically fluffy and partially melt into her jacket:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
In one more example, the pants and shoes appear as separate items in most frames but artificially merge in others:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
Sign
The sign in the clip showed the year 2025.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
However, bill SB 1010 (archived here) that renamed Loop 202 (archived here) wasn't passed until 2026 (archived here).
Another problem with the sign was the name of the entity that appeared on it: the Lake Board of County Commissioners.
The list of Arizona counties on the website of the Arizona Association of Counties does not include one named Lake:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of page at azcounties.org)
Furthermore, there are no "Boards of County Commissioners" in Arizona. According to the state's government website (archived here), it is a board of supervisors that performs functions of county-level governance (archived here).
Even the shadow cast by the sign didn't match the sign's shape:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/proleataria)
Wrong road
Contrary to what appears in the viral video, the newly renamed Loop 202 is not a rural or two-lane road. It's a major highway in the Phoenix metro area (archived here). In the video (archived here) from the Arizona Department of Transportation, it appears much wider, often equipped with barriers separating the road from the roadside:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from Vimeo)
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot from Vimeo)
Online AI detection
Hive Moderation, which is an online AI detector tool, showed that the odds of the video being the product of generative AI were 98%:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Hive Moderation plugin)
