Did Keanu Reeves, Dolly Parton, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and many others say that children should be raised according to "traditional values" avoiding "LGBTQ themes"? No, that's not true: This is a fake ragebait story claiming that many fans are now boycotting celebrities over something they never said. Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. The fake quote and the fake boycotts are just a trick to get people to click on a link. The copy/paste posts have been spread on Facebook by a network of pages from Vietnam and have also appeared on X.
One example of the false copy/paste rumor appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @KeanuReevesYaga on March 14, 2026. It is captioned:
Many people are boycotting me after i said that children should not be exposed to movies or shows featuring LGBTQ themes.
I argued that children should be raised according to "traditional values" and that adults should simply allow kids to enjoy their childhood as children.
This is the photo included with the post:
(Image source: post by @KeanuReevesYaga on X.)
A search on X for the phrase "I argued that children should be raised according to "traditional values"" produced a few copycat posts on the same theme (pictured below). A post by @paddymacc1 (archived here) on March 21, 2026 featured Willie Nelson. The X post caption closely followed the text caption on the photo. It read:
Good man Willie 🎸
Many people are boycotting Willie Nelson after he said that children should not be exposed to cartoons featuring LGBTQ themes.
He went on to say that children should be raised according to traditional values
A March 24, 2026, post (archived here) by @DanielGilr44222 featured a 21-second video shared from Instagram. In this case the subject of the false rumor was Robert Plant. The post was captioned:
People are boycotting singer Robert Plant's music after he said children should not be exposed to cartoons featuring LGBTQ themes. He argued that kids should be raised in "traditional ways" and that adults should simply let kids be kids. I agree with him, Leave the kids alone.
(Image source: posts by @paddymacc1 and @DanielGilr44222 on X.)
Lead Stories searched Facebook for the phrase, "children should not be exposed to cartoons featuring LGBTQ themes". The search results included musicians, singers, actors, athletes, comedians, TV personalities, dancers, politicians, religious leaders, and coaches -- 80 people in all (pictured in the montage below). These posts came from a wide variety of pages that had been curated to attract a certain fan base.
(Image source: Lead Stories montage of screenshots from Facebook.)
The page transparency report of most of these pages showed page managers in Vietnam. Cambodia, Philippines, India, and the United States were also represented. Some of the posts had been placed in Facebook groups with themes aligning with the celebrity.
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. Recent reporting and fact checks mentioning that country are available here.
A search on Google News (archived here) for the phrase "cartoons featuring LGBTQ themes" did not turn up a single news story about a celebrity saying something to this effect, but there were two fact checks. A March 18, 2026 article from Snopes (archived here) focused on the rumor as it was applied to Kurt Russell. A March 17, 2026 article in the Star Observer (archived here) is titled, "Facebook Is Swamped With AI Articles About Your Favourite Celebrities Being Homophobic".
The celebrity names Lead Stories found used in these clickbait posts are listed below:
- Kaitlin Bennett
- Eric Braeden
- Mariann Budde
- Pete Buttigieg
- Cardi B
- Brandi Carlile
- Henry Cavill
- Val Chmerkovskiy
- Caitlin Clark
- Tasha Cobbs
- Ice Cube
- Sophia Cunningham
- Hubert Davis
- Johnny Depp
- Guy Fieri
- 50 Cent
- Shane Filan
- Jane Fonda
- John Foster
- Bill Gaither
- Riley Green
- Hannah Harper
- Anthony Hopkins
- Terrence Howard
- Kate Hudson
- Jalen Hurts
- Jamey Johnson
- Scarlett Johansson
- Trey Kaufman-Renn
- Patti LaBelle
- Brandon Lake
- Kendrick Lamar
- Miranda Lambert
- Ella Langley
- Jennifer Lawrence
- Martin Lawrence
- John Leguizamo
- Patrick Mahomes
- Marilyn Manson
- Bruno Mars
- Reba McEntire
- Sean McVay
- Erin Napier
- Willie Nelson
- Nikki Sixx
- Jenna Ortega
- Donny Osmond
- Sharon Osbourne
- Dolly Parton
- Steve Perry
- Robert Plant
- Mark Pope
- Natalie Portman
- Dak Prescott
- Brock Purdy
- Queen Latifah
- Keanu Reeves
- Jeremy Renner
- Alfonso Ribeiro
- Rob Schneider
- Jelly Roll
- Darius Rucker
- Kurt Russell
- Adam Sandler
- Calum Scott
- Blake Shelton
- Britney Spears
- Rick Springfield
- Bruce Springsteen
- George Strait
- Taylor Swift
- Teyana Taylor
- Carrie Underwood
- Tanya Tucker
- Emma Watson
- CeCe Winans
- Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson
- Katt Williams
- Pope Leo XIV
- Daddy Yankee
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.'"
