Is an image of an Indiana Hoosiers fan who looks like Charlie Kirk at the football game held against the Ohio State Buckeyes on Oct. 17, 2026, real? No, that's not true: Footage from the Fox broadcast shows a person with a mustache and curly hair, not Kirk. Online tools determined that the Kirk lookalike image was highly likely to be AI.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @_TruthZone_ account on X on Oct. 17, 2026. It read:
IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS???
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @_TruthZone_ on X.)
The photo shows the time during the game as 3:09 in the second quarter, with a score of three for the Ohio State Buckeyes and seven for the Indiana Hoosiers. A video (archived here) posted on the Santhirapalan Suganiya account on YouTube on Oct. 17, 2026, features a full replay of the game. The footage shows a man with a mustache and curly hair that falls over his forehead. The image posted on X shows a man with a widow's peak hairline like Kirk. The image posted on X matches the footage at 40:30 in the video. This is a screenshot of the video showing the real person:
(Image source: post by @SanthirapalanSuganiya on YouTube.)
In addition to the video evidence, Lead Stories tested the image with two AI detection tools, both of which found that the image was likely generated by AI.
According to Sightengine, the probability that the image is AI-generated is 99%:
(Image source: Sightengine.)
Hive Moderation rated the photo as 87% likely to have been generated using AI.
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at Utah Valley University. Lead Stories has debunked multiple claims about his death here.
