Is a viral clip purporting to show actor Robert De Niro walking in massive platform shoes real? No, that's not true: The clip demonstrated glitches typical of AI production and had an AI label. Four online detectors confirmed that it was not authentic footage.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @GrrrGraphics on June 15, 2026. It opened:
Robert De Niro...there he goes again!🤡🤡🤡 Who else is sick of this fool?
This is what the thumbnail video image attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
The clip incorporated several artifacts characteristic of AI-generated content.
There was no reflection of De Niro's supposed walk in the background windows mirroring other objects:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
At the 0:03 mark, one of the platforms fell off:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
Then it mysteriously reattached on its own:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
The actor walks unnaturally at the start: left, left, right. By the end of the clip, the platforms from both shoes multiplied: Two became three:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
After that, one of De Niro's shoes and feet inexplicably shrank to a normal size while another remained comically large:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
The post had an AI label:
(Image source: post by @GrrrGraphics on X.com.)
When Lead Stories ran the video through online AI detection tool Hive Moderation, it said the clip was 97.7% likely to have been made by AI:
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Lead Stories also tested the thumbnail image from the video. AI or Not said the odds of the picture containing AI were 86%:
(Image source: AI or Not.)
ZeroGPT ruled that the picture was "97% FAKE":
(Image source: ZeroGPT.)
Sightengine concluded that the chances of the thumbnail image being a product of generative AI were 99%:
(Image source: Sightengine.)
Similar still images were shared on social media as memes (archived here) in March 2026.
In 2018, De Niro discussed (archived here) wearing platform shoes for his role in "The Irishman" (archived here) on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." The photo that prompted that exchange showed much shorter boots. According to the actor, those platform shoes added five or six inches:
(Image source: YouTube.)
