Video shows Argentine dancer, not Volodymyr Zelensky
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on September 20, 2023 at 23:33
- Updated on April 29, 2024 at 17:35
- 5 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"This is Zelenskyy. I wonder if he's ever been to Epstein Island," says a September 20, 2023 post from Erin Elizabeth, an alternative health blogger identified by the Center for Countering Digital Hate as one of the top disseminators of misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.
Similar posts claiming to show Zelensky belly dancing rocketed across X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The video has bounced around the internet for months. Amplified by conservative influencers who have previously spread misinformation, such as Benny Johnson and Joey Mannarino, it resurfaced as Zelensky traveled to United Nations headquarters in New York and on September 20 sat in the same room as a Russian official for the first time since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But the clip is a misrepresentation. The man in the original footage is Pablo Acosta, whose Instagram account says he is a dancer, teacher and choreographer from Argentina.
Acosta posted the recording to his page on June 1, 2023 (archived here), with a caption full of hashtags indicating it showed belly dancing in the South American nation. Several other videos on Acosta's page show him performing in the same costume on a matching stage (archived here, here and here).
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Reached via an Instagram direct message, Acosta confirmed to AFP it is him in the video being misrepresented online.
"Yes, it is me," Acosta wrote in Spanish. "The video is mine."
The version circulating online appears to have been manipulated to superimpose Zelensky's face onto Acosta's body.
Zelensky worked in the entertainment industry as an actor and comedian before entering public service.
In another video from 2014 parodying a music video by a Ukrainian boy band, the then-comic can be seen dancing in high heels, a crop top and tight pants, the fact-checking outlet Snopes reported.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about Russia's war on Ukraine here.
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