A video circulating on social media platforms shows Taylor Swift posing during the 2024 Grammy Awards while allegedly carrying a flag endorsing Donald Trump. Utilizing the same flag to manipulate an image of the singer has occurred previously. More is revealed in this installment of Truth or Fake.
The flag in the altered video bears the inscription “Trump Won, Democrats Cheated!” This inscription alludes to the conspiracy theory that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. As determined by innumerable courts, there is no evidence that Trump was cheated out of a second term.
Multiple accounts on X have shared the video, and as of this writing, more than 4.5 million people have viewed it; however, it is unknown how many of those individuals are aware that the media is manipulated. The authentic video, which Variety was the first to publish, depicts Taylor Swift at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. It is evident from the original video that Swift never carried a pro-Trump flag.
In recent months, Swift has unintentionally turned into a political lightning rod. Prior to the 2020 election, Swift initially supported Joe Biden for president; however, the singer has previously stated that she makes an effort to keep her political opinions to herself.
Trump Banner Edited Into Red-carpet Footage of Swift
At the 66th Grammy Awards, on February 4, Swift won her fourth career album of the year, creating Grammy Awards history. It is false to say that she carried a Trump-supporting flag during the ceremony, as stated in the Instagram post.
The post’s image has a watermark from Variety, an entertainment magazine, which first appeared on X (previously Twitter) and shared a video of Swift’s red carpet arrival. Swift is seen standing for cameras in the original clip with her hands by her sides rather than a pro-Trump flag in her.
Swift is seen wearing black gloves in a number of videos taken of her on the red carpet. Swift is shown in the modified photo waving a banner with her bare hands. The assertion is depicted in the video with Swift holding the same banner with her bare hands, but noticeably, the banner remains stationary as Swift changes her posture, indicating that it isn’t a genuine fabric object in the film.
View this post on Instagram
The image on Instagram is a snapshot of a post created by a satirical X account, which modified the title of a Swift video that it obtained from another X user. The Instagram post makes no mention of the image’s potential humorous nature, nor does it provide the name of the satirical account.