Fact Check: Is the picture of Taylor Swift eating ice cream in Africa real or fake? Viral picture debunked

Taylor Swift is all over the internet for the massive success of her Eras tour and relationship with Travis Kelce. Amidst all this, a new image floating around the internet in November showcases Swift eating ice cream in front of crying kids. The original source of the image is not known.

People who posted the image claim that it was taken while the singer was in Africa. However, the image is a clear fake, as Taylor Swift has not made any recent trips to Africa and is currently in South America. The image also showcases prominent signs of either being AI-generated or simply photoshopped. The last time Taylor was in Africa was to shoot the music video for her 2015 hit, Wildest Dreams.

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Taylor Swift has never shared such a picture

The viral image showcased the singer clutching an ice cream cone next to her mouth and smiling while a lot of crying kids seemed to be running toward her. Some users even gave a backstory to the image. X (formerly known as Twitter) user @TheButcher_1776 wrote alongside a November 12 tweet of the image:

"Taylor Swift has recently shared a photo of her visiting a small village and enjoying an ice cream on her most recent trip to Africa 🌍 the photo is disturbing to say the least as it's obvious this child is crying and she is enjoying his misery. How cruel..."

Both the rather uncanny image and the description are fake. Taylor Swift did not recently share any video of her visiting any village in Africa. She just got done with the Buenos Aires 3-day performance which was extended to Sunday, November 12, due to bad weather. Her next stop is Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from where she will be performing from November 17-19.

The photograph itself looks like a very noticeable fake. Some of the hands of the children in the background look deformed, and the silhouette of the child behind Taylor's ice cream is also extremely deformed and looks merged together with someone else. The background of the image appears extremely blurred and in motion.

The image could be AI-generated due to the telltale signs of deformed humans, while at the same time, it could also be photoshopped. A reverse image search on the reverse image searching platform TinEye yielded no results, indicating that the image has never been published by any prominent news outlet. The image was also posted on a Facebook page called Weird AI Generations.

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Taylor Swift and the 'Wildest Dreams' controversy

Taylor Swift has never visited any country in Africa for a tour; however, she did visit the continent to shoot a controversial music video. The video of her hit song Wildest Dreams, directed by Joseph Kahn, was filmed in South Africa, Botswana, and California. Wildest Dreams was released in 2015 as the fifth official single from her 2014 fifth studio album, 1989.

The video showcased a love story set in Africa between Taylor Swift and actor Scott Eastwood, the son of Clint Eastwood. Most of the video was filmed in Botswana's Makgadikgadi Salt Pan. It shows Taylor and Scott portraying two 1940s-era actors in love while shooting a movie in Africa. The video had 903 million views on YouTube at the time of writing. All proceeds from the video went to the African Parks Foundation of America.

Controversy erupted when the music video was criticized for showcasing a romanticized colonial version of Africa and only having white actors in it. An NPR headline from 2015 reads, "Taylor Swift Is Dreaming Of A Very White Africa". Despite the heavy backlash, the song and its video are still beloved by a vast majority of Swifties.