Does a real photo show the moment when Dr. Anthony Fauci's wife, Christine Grady, flipped the bird at a photographer? Yes, that's essentially true: The image is an AI-enhanced photo showing Grady flipping off a photographer as the couple drives through their Washington, D.C., neighborhood. The updated image removes raindrops and reflections from the vehicle window visible in the original photo.
The claim appeared in a post and image by the @ericmmatheny account on X on Aug. 8, 2026. It read:
Ugly disgusting human beings.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @ericmmatheny on X.)
Original photo
The original photo appeared in a story published by the New York Post on Aug. 6, 2026. It also appeared in a post by the @nypost account on X on Aug. 6, 2026.
This is what the image in the New York Post article looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: Andrew Thomas - Consolidated News Photos for NY Post.)
The Hive Moderation AI-Generated Content Detection tool returned an aggregated score of 68.2% for the @ericmmatheny post on X, indicating that it is likely to be AI-generated or AI-modified:
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
For a final comparison, the original image (top) and the AI-enhanced version (bottom) are stacked below:
(Image source: Andrew Thomas - Consolidated News Photos for NY Post and a post by @ericmmatheny on X.)
