Fact Check: Is the viral Sam Smith crowd-surfing video real? Social media post debunked

A video of a person attempting to crowd-surf at a Vanilla Ice concert in Canyonville Oregon has gone viral and netizens are claiming that the person was singer Sam Smith. The video shows a person wearing a neon green ninja turtle outfit dancing on a concert stage before jumping into the crowd. However, the person's crowd-surf was unsuccessful and they were seen falling through the crowd instead of surfing it.

The video was quick to go viral on social media and was even retweeted by multiple Twitter accounts, one of which was social media influencer, Ian Miles Cheong. Ian retweeted the video on Thursday, June 22, 2023, and it has managed to amass over 10.2 million views since then. However, a context note under the video states that the person isn't Sam Smith.

The context note states that the person in the video isn't Sam Smith (@stillgray)

The context note under the viral video provided a link for a TikTok video that was posted by @jennifersandersmu1 on June 21, 2023. The video, which is taken from a different angle shows that the person in the viral video wasn't Sam Smith. As mentioned earlier, it shows a man dancing at a Vanilla Ice concert on June 17, 2023, wearing a neon green ninja turtle outfit and trying to crowd-surf before falling.

Additionally, a Twitter user @SmithCharts, which calls itself the "official source of all things Sam Smith" also posted a complete and clear video of the man dancing. It was a video of the man from before the incident and showed the man's face in full clarity, making it clear that it wasn't the singer. The clip was a TikTok re-post, attributed to @sahara_sky.

The original video was posted on TikTok by @brandonlatham5 on June 19, 2023, and has amassed over 7.1 million views and 550,000 likes. It was captioned, "SAM SMITH STAGE DIVING IN SEATTLE."

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Sam Smith stated that they were heartbroken about the Manchester concert cancellation

In May 2023, Sam Smith was trending once again when they were forced to cancel their Manchester concert. The Vulgar singer had to call off their concert in AO Arena in Manchester on May 24, 2023, after only a few songs due to vocal issues. They gave an official statement about the cancellation through an Instagram story titled, "Dear Sailors."

In the note, they wrote that they fought a virus a few weeks ago and have traveled through Europe after that and had "incredible shows."

Sam Smith's apologized to fans who attended the cut-short concert (Image via Twitter/@PaulSkillington)

However, they experienced some discomfort during one of their songs.

“During my third song, I noticed something wrong with my voice. I prayed it was just my voice waking up for the show but into the fourth song I could feel something was really wrong," the singer explained what happened.

Smith wrote that they tried doing everything they could to get their voice back on track but unfortunately, it wasn't possible. They added that they were "heartbroken" that they couldn't finish the show and ended their note apologizing to fans and telling them that Smith loved them.

A few days after this, on June 3, 2023, the Unholy singer posted an update about their condition through an Instagram video.

The singer explained that their vocal cords were healing and that they were going to be fine for the remaining shows. Smith expressed their gratitude for encouraging fan messages and reiterated their apologies to all those who missed out on the show.