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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

dpaCulture & entertainment

Der Spruch «Im Gegensatz zum Gehirn meldet sich der Magen, wenn er leer ist» stammt von Albert Einstein bzw. dem Dalai Lama.

Publisher’s rating: Der Ursprung des Spruchs ist nicht belegt. Zwar wird er im Netz häufig berühmten Persönlichkeiten zugeschrieben, doch dafür, dass er von Einstein oder dem Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso stammt, gibt es keinerlei Beweise.

The claim concerns the saying “Im Gegensatz zum Gehirn meldet sich der Magen, wenn er leer ist,” which has been attributed online to Albert Einstein and, in a Facebook image, to the Dalai Lama. The investigation tested whether either attribution could be substantiated; it did not identify a known original source for the saying. The review notes that tracing a genuine quotation can be easier than disproving an attribution, but reports finding indications that neither named person was its source. To investigate, the review searched distinctive wording from the English version shown alongside the German text on an Einstein image. Initial results were mostly medical pages; after excluding search terms, it found no indication linking the saying to Einstein or the Dalai Lama. Searches for the German wording likewise found quote-collection pages and merchandise listings. The oldest results it could locate were dated 2015, but the review cautions that such dates can be manipulated and therefore do not establish when the saying originated. The review also checked searchable digital manuscripts offered by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Searches for “Magen,” “Gehirn,” and “stomach” returned no results, and the eight results for “brain” did not contain the alleged quotation. Taken together, these searches did not prove who first wrote the saying; they found no reliable evidence supporting either attribution and left its original source unknown.

FACTLYCulture & entertainment

Photo of Mahatma Gandhi dancing with a British woman at a party

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photograph shared as showing Mahatma Gandhi dancing with a British woman at a party during the Indian freedom movement. FACTLY reports that the photograph instead shows an Australia-based artist dressed as Gandhi, dancing with a woman at a charity gala in Sydney. The person in the image is therefore not Gandhi, and the post’s identification is incorrect. To investigate the image’s provenance, FACTLY says it conducted a reverse image search and found a similar photograph in a Bollywood Life article from 21 February 2012. That article identified the dancer as an Australian artist dressed like Gandhi at a Sydney charity gala and explicitly clarified that he was not the real Gandhi. FACTLY also notes that other news websites reported the same identification. The review describes visual comparisons as additional checks: it says the pictured dancer has a stronger build than Gandhi, whom it characterizes as naturally very skinny, and wears footwear it describes as modern compared with Gandhi’s footwear during the Indian freedom movement. FACTLY says it compared the shared image with original pictures of Gandhi and concluded that the dancer was the artist in costume. The excerpt does not name the artist or provide further details about the gala.

dpaCulture & entertainment

Actrice Betty White overleed op haar 99e, twee dagen nadat ze een boosterprik van een coronavaccin kreeg.

Publisher’s rating: Er is geen enkel bewijs dat Betty White een boosterprik kreeg op 28 december of enige andere datum. Een exacte doodsoorzaak is niet bekend, maar volgens de politie was die wel natuurlijk.

The claim tied Betty White’s death to an alleged COVID-19 booster shot on December 28, 2021, two days earlier. The review reports that White died on December 31, aged 99, and that no specific cause of death was announced. It also says Los Angeles police told Us Weekly that the death appeared natural and that there was no evidence of a crime. The review found no evidence that White received a booster on December 28 or on any other date. The allegation circulated alongside a screenshot of an article from the U.S. website Crowriver Media. The review checked the article’s contents against the alleged quotation attributed to White—“I got my booster shot today”—and reports that no such quotation appeared in the article. It also notes that the article was published on December 28, three days before White died, rather than two days before, as the Facebook post claimed. The review describes additional checks of White’s public social-media accounts: it found no trace of the quoted statement or of her saying she had received a COVID-19 vaccine. White did post on December 28 about a People magazine interview for her upcoming birthday. According to the review, that interview discussed her good health but did not mention vaccines; Crowriver Media’s article reused quotations from that People interview.