Fact Check

Is a video of Jeremy Clarkson talking about refusing a "£100 million deal" from Bill Gates to buy his Diddly Squat farm real? No, that's not true: The social media post in which the video appeared came with a lengthy disclaimer largely hidden below a "See more" link. Clarkson also left a comment under a now deleted post that appeared…

Does a video of passengers on a plane screaming while an "unknown creature is loose" show a real incident? No, that's not true: The video clip of the passengers screaming and jumping up on their seats to avoid an unknown critter running around the plane was a skit with actors. The TikTok page where it was originally posted features dozens…

Did comedians Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart or actor Tom Hanks broadcast a television program to disclose the names of numerous people not previously known to be implicated by the files of investigations into Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true: Nearly identical stories mentioning those and others were published by a network of foreign websites and Facebook pages. There were…

Did the family of Epstein's late survivor Virginia Giuffre, Stephen Colbert or Elon Musk spend millions of dollars to file a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other people? No, that's not true: A federal court database showed no such case filed by Giuffre's surviving brother, and credible media organizations did not publish any reports of such a…

Was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested 666 days after blood-soaked horses associated with the Royal Family escaped in London? Yes, that's true: The former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on February 19, 2026. This came 666 days after a separate incident on April 24, 2024, in which five horses from the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment threw…

Does a video of a heckler, who was assaulted after shouting at Prince Andrew, show a 2026 incident? No, that's not true: The video is authentic, but was more than three years old at the time of the former Duke of York's arrest on suspicion of "misconduct in office". It shows the October 2022 procession carrying the coffin of Queen…

Is a grainy image of former Prince Andrew and Meghan Markle in intimate postures authentic? No, that's not true: The image is "99% AI slop," the creator of the image wrote on their X.com account. Blocky pixelations and a faint red ring around the woman's face reinforce what the image-creator said: it's a manufactured picture. The claim appeared in a…

Did Chelsea Clinton tweet, "Close but no cigar Trump!!!" while claiming there was a conspiracy to disparage her father's name? No, that's not true: This is a fake screenshot. Chelsea Clinton never posted a tweet with this loaded satirical wording. Additionally, usernames on X are displayed with an @ sign, while the ChelseaClinton username pictured in the fake screenshot does…

Did NBA player Victor Wembanyama, or NFL players Jeremiyah Love, Jalen Hurts, or Micah Parsons, reward Maria Thompson with a pickup truck or SUV after she helped him when he was having car trouble? No, that's not true: This story is a copy/paste clickbait formula which has been circulating on social media. Nearly identical stories mentioning those and other names…

Did the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks refuse an invitation to the White House? No, that's not true: There's no evidence the team has been invited to Washington for a reception with President Donald Trump or that the team has refused such an invitation. The White House has not responded to inquiries from Lead Stories about the matter. The Seattle…

Did Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift announce on a livestream that they are spending $250 million to find the truth in the Virginia Giuffre case? No, that's not true: Neither the celebrity couple nor news organizations said anything about it. The claim was promoted by overseas-based pages that publish made-up stories to drive traffic-based ad revenue. The claim appeared in…

Is this a real video of President Donald Trump kissing Nicki Minaj? No, that's not true: The black-and-white "security camera" footage purporting to show them kissing exhibits clear signs of AI manipulation, including unnatural facial blending where their faces appear to partially merge and separate, inconsistent lighting, and the absence of a verifiable source. An AI detection tool rated it…

Did school picture contractor LifeTouch put "you and every other American kid" in the Epstein files? No, that's not true: There's no evidence that all 49 million American schoolchildren are in the Justice Department's files. The company name appears in the Department of Justice's online library of released files about pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, but only once, on a minor…

Does a legitimate screenshot show that Elon Musk in February of 2026 wrote "I agree with the teachings of Jesus," in an X post? Yes, that's true: The X owner did post that message on his verified account. The screenshot does not alter his post. The claim appeared in a February 17, 2026, post on X.com account @TheRealThelmaJ1 (archived here).…

Did tabloid news outlet TMZ publish a report saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a Los Angeles mansion belonging to Sean "Diddy" Combs for $61 Million? No, that's not true: Using TMZ's search box, Lead Stories found no such story about Diddy. Searching for Zelenskyy's name similarly showed no such TMZ story. The claim appeared in a Feb. 18, 2026…

Did Thai golfer Atthaya "Jeeno" Thitikul say 'don't touch my family' at a news conference with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt? No, that's not true: No media outlets reported that about the golfer or any other celebrity, including actors Robert De Niro and Tom Hanks and gospel singer Guy Penrod, who was rumored to have made the identical statement…

Did Rep. Ted Lieu say that the full, unreleased Epstein files show Donald Trump raping children? No, that's not true: Lieu said at a February 3, 2026, news conference that the files include "highly disturbing allegations" of Donald Trump raping and threatening to kill children. He did not reference "unreleased" files, or say that child rapes are seen in them.…

Does a video from the White House show a woman acting strangely? No, that's not true: The grainy images are from a slow-motion version of a video taken at a White House news conference in December 2025 announcing that Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, and his wife, Susan, would donate more than $6 billion to soon-to-be-opened Trump Accounts,…

Does a real video show a firefighter rescuing a mother dog and pups from a burning building by cutting the bars from a window with a grinder? No, that's not true: This video is AI-generated. Lead Stories identified at least four more nearly identical AI-generated videos spawned by the same prompt. The videos have the same plotline with small variations,…

Does an image show Attorney General Pam Bondi at age 14 with President Donald Trump at a Jeffrey Epstein party? No, that's not true: An AI-generated content detector concluded that it was 99.9% certain to have been made by an artificial intelligence tool. Lead Stories found obvious signs that it was a deepfake image in 2023 when we fact checked…