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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Culture & entertainment fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about culture & entertainment. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,169 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Recent video of Deepika Padukone emotionally responding to the online hate campaign against her film ‘Pathaan’

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a video circulated amid online backlash and boycott demands over Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone’s upcoming film Pathaan. Posts presented the footage as Padukone becoming emotional while responding to that campaign. FACTLY says the video instead showed her discussing her experience of clinical depression, and that it was unrelated to the film’s release or boycott campaign. [S1: “Amid the online backlash and boycott trends over Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone’s upcoming film ‘Pathaan’, a video is being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of Deepika Padukone getting emotional while responding to the boycott demands of her film Pathaan.”; “The post shared an old video of Deepika Padukone emotionally talking about her battle with clinical mental depression.”; “The video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with her upcoming release ‘Pathaan’.”] To check the footage, the review says it reverse-image-searched screenshots from the posts. It found a video with similar visuals posted on Facebook on 11 October 2018, then found an extended version on the Live Love Laugh Foundation’s YouTube channel, published on 10 October 2018. The foundation described it as Padukone recounting her story and the difficulties she faced after being diagnosed with clinical depression. [S1: “On reverse image search of the screenshots shared in the post, a video showing similar visuals was found posted by a Facebook user on 11 October 2018.”; “When we searched for further sources using keywords on the internet, an extended version of the video was found published on the ‘Live Love Laugh Foundation’ YouTube channel on 10 October 2018.”; “This YouTube channel described it as the visuals of Deepika Padukone revealing her story and the hurdles she faced while she was diagnosed with clinical mental depression.”] The review also reports that NDTV covered the video as part of the foundation’s World Mental Health Day awareness campaign in 2018. It quotes Padukone describing how difficult it was to face the day and how conscious she felt around people. This reported context supports the identification of the clip as an account of depression, rather than a response to the Pathaan boycott campaign. [S1: “‘NDTV’ published an article reporting about this video released by Deepika Padukone as part of the Live Love Laugh Foundation’s awareness campaign on World’s Mental Health Day in 2018.”; “Recalling her battle with depression, Deepika Padukone said, ‘Waking up was tough because I didn’t want to face the day.’”]

dpaCulture & entertainment

Deze foto's tonen gewone Nederlanders tijdens de slavernij.

Publisher’s rating: De gebruikte foto's tonen geen Nederlanders in armoede in de periode van de slavernij. Het gaat om inwoners van plaggenhutten in Drenthe in de jaren '20 en '30 van de twintigste eeuw.

The Facebook post used photographs of impoverished homes to argue that ordinary Dutch people were also poor during the period for which the Dutch government later apologized for slavery. The review says the images do show severe poverty, but they do not depict people living during slavery: they show residents of sod-covered huts in Drenthe in the 1920s and 1930s. The review dates the four images to 1926, an unspecified year in the 1920s, and twice to 1936. It therefore places them decades after slavery was abolished in the Netherlands in 1863. The photos support the narrower point that some Dutch rural laborers lived in poverty, but not the post’s claim that these particular scenes show ordinary Dutch people during slavery. The review also distinguishes the photographs’ dating from the wider historical debate. It says poverty existed among Dutch people during the period of the slave trade, while noting that the images used in the post were wrongly dated for that argument. Its account states that the Dutch state’s formal apology was delivered by Prime Minister Rutte on 19 December 2022.

Fact Crescendo CambodiaCulture & entertainment

នកនាង ប៊ុន ចាន់និមល ម្ចាស់​ផលិតកម្ម Sastra Film មាន​ក្ដី​ស្រម៉ៃ​ចង់​ឱ្យ​វិស័យ​ភាពយន្ត 18+ខ្មែរ ប្រកួត​ប្រជែងជាមួយ​ភាពយន្ត​បរទេស​លើ​ឆាក​អន្តរជាតិ។ ហើយ​ជាពិសេស​អ្នក​នាង​បាន​សំណូម​ពរ​ឱ្យ​មហាជន​ខ្មែរ កុំ​ជាន់​ពន្លិច​ភាពយន្ត​ខ្មែរ​ខ្លួន​ឯង ហើយ​ទៅ​គាំ​ទ្រ​ភាពយន្ត​ជប៉ុន។

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

A purported tweet of ‘BBC News Hindi’ reporting Shah Rukh Khan’s recent comments about Pakistan

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a screenshot presented as a BBC News Hindi tweet saying Shah Rukh Khan called Pakistan his second home and would donate Pathaan’s first-day collections to a Pakistan-based NGO. It also attributed support for that decision to his co-stars, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham. FACTLY concluded that the screenshot was morphed and that the reported donation announcement was not made. The review states, “Shah Rukh Khan did not make any announcement about donating the Pathaan’s first-day collections to an NGO in Pakistan and BBC did not make any tweet reporting such comments from Shah Rukh Khan.” To check the purported BBC attribution, FACTLY searched for the report on BBC News Hindi’s official Twitter handle and says it found none. It also identified a visible sign of alteration in the screenshot: “one could spot ‘Twitter for OKsatire’ text below this morphed tweet.” These are the review’s stated grounds for rejecting the screenshot as an authentic BBC post. The review separately examined the alleged donation. It reports finding no news report confirming the announcement and distinguishes Shah Rukh Khan’s documented remarks about his family origins from the claimed pledge: his father was from Peshawar, Pakistan, but “lately, he did not make any announcement about donating the first-day collections of his Pathaan movie to a charity in Pakistan.” It also says Deepika Padukone and John Abraham had not made the attributed anti-boycott statements.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

The scene shown in the viral video is from the movie Pathaan, in which Shah Rukh Khan says he does not like the colour of his saffron jail uniform

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a viral clip in which Shah Rukh Khan tells Priyanka Chopra he is unhappy with his jail uniform, and social-media posts attributed that scene to Pathaan and described the uniform as saffron. FACTLY’s review says the clip instead comes from Don-2, which features Khan and Chopra. It notes that Pathaan was still scheduled for release in January 2023, so the scene was being attributed to a film that had not yet been released. FACTLY describes searching online for scenes featuring both actors. That search led the reviewers to a jail scene from Don-2 on YouTube. They compared the viral clip with the scene at 2 minutes 30 seconds and reported that the visuals and conversation match, including Khan’s line about being unhappy with the colour of his jail uniform. This comparison supports the review’s identification of the clip as a scene from Don-2, not Pathaan. The review also says another scene from the film reveals the jail’s location in Malaysia and notes that orange is among the colours worn by inmates in Malaysian jails. That detail is offered as context for the uniform’s appearance; the central identification rests on the matching Don-2 scene. The review’s conclusion is that the viral post misattributed the clip to Pathaan.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Coins from the Harappan civilization era unearthed in a farmer’s field in UP’s Bijnor

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The review examines a viral story about Hom Singh, described as a Bijnor resident, supposedly finding 146 coins from the Harappan Civilization worth crores of rupees. It reports that the documented 2016 discovery in Bijnor was different: a farmer found copper utensils while digging in his field. The review says the Archaeological Survey of India considered the utensils most likely to belong to the Harappan Era, but that major news reports did not say 146 coins had been found.

dpaCulture & entertainment

Cette photo montre une création de Balenciaga.

Publisher’s rating: La tenue n’a pas été élaborée par Balenciaga. Elle a été créée par une artiste spécialisée dans le maquillage à effets spéciaux. Le logo de Balenciaga que l’on voit sur les images relayées récemment ne figure pas sur la photo originale.

The claim concerns a photo of a jacket made to resemble an assembly of human faces, attributed online to Balenciaga. The dpa review identifies the garment as the work of Kayla Arena, a special-effects makeup artist, rather than a Balenciaga design. It says Arena, who is based in Australia, posted a photo of it to Instagram in 2015. The review describes the apparent skin as fabricated using latex and silicone. (S1: “La veste est une création de Kayla Arena, une spécialiste du maquillage à effets spéciaux active notamment dans l’industrie cinématographique. L’artiste, basée en Australie, a publié une photo du vêtement sur son compte Instagram en 2015.”) The review also distinguishes the original photo from later versions circulated online: it says the Balenciaga logo visible in recently shared images was added after the original photograph. Its account places the garment’s image on platforms such as Reddit from 2017 onward, and says the logo alteration was intended to make the outfit appear to be a brand creation. Thus, the logo in the circulated images does not establish that Balenciaga made the garment. (S1: “La photo originale de la veste a commencé à circuler sur différentes plateformes, comme Reddit, à partir de 2017. Le logo de Balenciaga a été ajouté par la suite pour faire croire à une création de la marque.”)