As communities in Texas continued their search for the missing affected by a flood that so far has killed nearly 120 people, dozens of Facebook posts trumpeted news that sports and music icons were on their side.
Some of the posts showed celebrities alongside photos of mourners and flood damage. Rapper Eminem. Football stars Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. According to these posts, they each “broke down” or “couldn’t hold back his tears” after hearing about the tragedy and pledged their help.
By the captions’ telling, these well-known figures already raised tens of millions of dollars for relief efforts. The posts gained thousands of shares.
But many of them aren’t true. When PolitiFact looked for evidence, we found no public announcements and no news reports supporting these individual stories of celebrity outpouring, including that:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans donated $15 million; Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb donated $3 million and “quietly went to the disaster area to help the people there;” Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes donated $1.5 million and rented out two apartments for families; or San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle donated $15 million.
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Rapper Lil Wayne donated $10 million.
The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Longhorns donated $50 million to support victims and assist in search and rescue.
MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow donated $3 million and hand wrote letters to the parents of 27 missing girls. “A moment of raw emotion captured by cameras that left fans and critics alike stunned.”
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, donated $25 million “to support victims and aid in the search and rescue” of missing people. (Crockett’s 2023 financial disclosure report indicated that she had assets totaling between $3,000 to $45,000, and liabilities between $15,001 to $50,000, which makes a $25 million donation unlikely.)
To be clear, many people and organizations have given in support of people affected by the July 3-4 floods. Among those killed are more than two dozen childrenmany of whom were attending camp alongside the Guadalupe River.
The NFL, Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans pledged a collective $1.5 million donation to the affected communities, for example. But PolitiFact did not find announcements from the people listed above.
Although deceptive posts like these are often created to drive viewers to click on links that take people to ad-filled websites, they can also have an impact on peoples’ attitudes about disaster relief response, said Yotam Ophir, University at Buffalo associate professor of communication who studies misinformation.
“If people are convinced that celebrities have already poured millions of dollars into aid, then one can dismiss the need for federal funding of crisis solutions,” Ophir said. “The long run impact could be less trust in the government, as it may seem as if officials are not doing enough, and that the safety of citizens depends on the good intentions of celebs and rich people.”
Fake celebrity-focused narratives are easy ‘harvesters’ for attention, and likely financial gain
The posts often came from entertainment-focused or personality-focused pages. Ophir said that if posts gain enough attention, people can make money from them. “The sums are usually very small, but some of the pages that spread these false narratives have hundreds of thousands, and even more than a million, followers, so it can add up,” he said.
Collectively, the posts above gained more than 52,000 shares.
Various actors make celebrity-centered posts like these, which are common after a disaster, said Cliff Lampe, University of Michigan professor of information. These go viral because fans of celebrities want them to be seen doing good things, “which by extension means they are good people, too,” he said.
“Posts like this are easy ‘harvesters,’ in that they can get a lot of attention for a little effort,” Lampe said. “Sometimes the reason to do that is just to sell ads later. Sometimes a hostile foreign actor will post things like this to further (embed) political identification among Facebook (users) and drive people further apart.”
Ophir said that these celebrities’ popularity, combined with people’s increased attention during disasters, can lead to more perceived credibility.
“We are biased to believe that people who are bigger than life will be involved in bigger than life events. So the image of a celeb in a high-profile scene makes sense to our brains, and makes it easier for us to believe it to be true,” he said.
Posts contain mix of real and AI-generated images
Some of these posts included AI-generated images of the celebrities appearing to help flood victims. The post claiming Maddow donated $3 million featured an image of her helping an elderly woman in waist-deep water, but it’s likely AI-generated; there are no authentic photos that show such a scene.
Similarly dubious images showed singer Rod Stewart carrying and assisting people while walking through flooded streets.
Some posts included both real and AI-generated images. One post combined a likely AI-generated image and a misrepresented image from 2017.
“As AI technology improves, it will also become that much easier to produce false visual evidence that could be used to draw engagement from users,” Ophir said. “It’s important to remember that many people look at it over small screens in low resolution, which can make them more susceptible to believe it.”
