Are social media posts claiming that a long list of celebrities have each said "powerful pro-Israel American billionaires" are working to undermine their careers real? No, that's not true: None of the celebrities named in the posts made any such statement. The claims came from AI-generated Facebook posts produced by a spam operation managed from Vietnam.
Among the false posts Lead Stories found is a post (archived here) making the claim about Meryl Streep shared by the "A Living Legend" Facebook page on April 2, 2026. The text read:
Meryl Streep has made one of the most high-stakes political statements of her career, publicly claiming that powerful pro-Israel American billionaires are working to undermine her professional standing, and insisting that this pressure will not change her stance on Palestine.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue May 12 22:13:57 2026 UTC)
(Image source: A Living Legend Facebook page)
The post continued:
Her remarks echo concerns raised by other entertainers in recent years, who have described facing coordinated financial and reputational pressure through industry connections, streaming platforms, brand deals, and media coverage when they take a clear public position on the conflict.
Meryl Streep is not a fringe voice. She is one of the most recognizable and influential figures in the entertainment industry, which makes both the claims she is making and her willingness to stand by them especially significant.
Actor Mark Ruffalo has also stated he is willing to risk his career over his views on Palestine. Meryl Streep is now expressing a similar position from one of the most prominent platforms in Hollywood, acknowledging that the potential professional cost could be substantial.
A Google search (archived here) for "Meryl Streep pro-Israel billionaires" returned no results.
Lead Stories searched Facebook to identify other fake posts in the series, including with a search (archived here) for the keywords "publicly claiming that powerful pro-Israel American billionaires are working to undermine." The false posts named musicians, actors, an author, a comedian, a news host and a sports star, including:
- Barbra Streisand
- Billie Eilish
- Bradley Cooper
- Bruno Mars
- Dave Chappelle
- Denzel Washington
- Jelly Roll
- Kurt Russell
- Lawrence Jones
- Marilyn Manson
- Matthew McConaughey
- Meryl Streep
- Michael B. Jordan
- Mick Jagger
- Scarlett Johansson
- Smokey Robinson
- Stephen King
- Steven Tyler
- Tanya Tucker
- Taylor Swift
- Tom Hanks
- Travis Kelce
- Vince Gill
(Image source: Facebook)
The image used in the Meryl Streep post is AI-generated. The Hive Moderation AI content detection tool concluded with 99 percent confidence that the image was AI-generated.
(Image source: HiveModeration.com screenshot)
The "A Living Legend" Facebook page transparency data (archived here) confirmed it is managed from Vietnam.
(Image source: A Living Legend Facebook page)
The post links to an article on echobeats.org. At the time of writing, Facebook displayed a community standards warning when users attempted to click through to the echobeats.org link from the false post, an indication that Meta has begun flagging the Vietnamese-managed redirect domains used by this operation.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
The post links to an article on echobeats.org that redirects to another URL. At the time of writing, Facebook block the domain and displayed a community standards warning when users attempted to click through to the link from the false post. This indicates that Meta has begun flagging the Vietnamese-managed redirect domains used by this operation. When Lead Stories went directly to the URL, we saw a message in Vietnameses that translated to "Not found. The article does not exist or the URL is invalid."
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of ai.daily24.blog)
Lead Stories has previously documented two of the Facebook pages amplifying the false pro-Israel billionaires claims as part of unrelated false claims from the same Vietnamese-managed operation. "A Living Legend," the page that posted the false Meryl Streep claim, previously circulated false claims about the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting in late April 2026, the subject of a Lead Stories fact check published on April 27, 2026. "The Streisand Legacy," ostensibly a Barbra Streisand fan page that this week posted that Streisand was claiming pro-Israel billionaires were undermining her, also posted a false claim in April 2026 alleging Streisand was being announced as a 2026 FIFA World Cup headliner. That false claim was the subject of a Lead Stories fact check published on April 29, 2026.
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.
Lead Stories has published a primer -- or a prebunk -- on how to identify these kinds of fake posts exported from Vietnam. It is titled "Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam.'"
