Does a real video show Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson publicly declining the invitation to attend the UFC White House event? No, that's not true: An AI-generated cloned voice has been dubbed over pre-existing video clips of Johnson. One clip -- which appears to show his mouth moving in sync with the audio -- is based on footage from an unrelated 2024 interview. Vanity Fair reported that "a source close to The Rock" said he wasn't attending, but this does not equate to Johnson publicly declining the invitation as represented in the video.
The fake AI-generated audio track can be found in a video uploaded to TikTok by @stewart.phylicia on June 6, 2026 (archived here). The post was captioned:
Dwayne Johnson publicly declined the invitation to attend the UFC White House event #celebrity #foryou #dwaynejohnson #ufc
This is a screenshot from the video:
(Image source: post by @stewart.phylicia on TikTok.)
Lead Stories uploaded 20 seconds of this video to the detection tool of AI-generated content at Hive Moderation. This determined with 98.6% confidence that the speech was AI-generated (pictured below).
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
In the opening of this video, a clip (pictured below) shows Johnson in a studio setting, wearing eyeglasses and a grey and black tropical print shirt. For about four seconds his mouth moves in sync with the audio. This is fake. He appears to say:
No matter what promises Dana White makes, I will not be participating in the White House UFC Freedom 250 event.
(Image source: post by @stewart.phylicia on TikTok.)
A promotional interview, published on YouTube on Nov. 27, 2024 -- when the movie "Moana 2" was released in the U.S. -- features Johnson in that shirt and glasses (archived here). The video from Entertainment Weekly is titled, "Dwayne Johnson Explains What Mana Means to Him" (pictured below).
This Entertainment Weekly interview predates any mention of plans for a UFC fight at the White House in 2026. That public announcement was made by President Donald Trump on July 3, 2025 (archived here).
(Image source: Entertainment Weekly video on YouTube.)
The fake voiceover in the @stewart.phylicia video continues to detail the purported reasons for not attending, while scenes of the UFC stage construction at the White House and video clips of Johnson play in the background. Nothing in this narration reflects any public statement or position attributed to Johnson. The fake audio concludes:
The White House is not a private showroom, and the Octagon should never become a tool for political theater. If an event leaves the public feeling divided and uncomfortable then it has already lost the true meaning of freedom. I'm more than willing to celebrate my country, but don't expect me to let my name be used to polish the image of any political circus.
A June 4, 2026, article in Vanity Fair titled, "Trump's White House Fight Night Has a Star-Power Problem" (archived here) mentions several celebrities including Johnson on the guest list of Dana White, president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship. An unnamed "source close to The Rock" said he would not be attending, but no reason was included in the reporting. A search of Google News for "Dwayne Johnson UFC White House" (archived here) shows several outlets covering the story, but each traces back to the Vanity Fair article as its sole source. Johnson has not personally and publicly declined the invitation as represented in the @stewart.phylicia TikTok video.
