Charlie Kirk post misattributed to Mick Jagger spreads online

Published on September 24, 2025 at 10:28
3 min read
By Dene-Hern CHEN, AFP Australia

Various public figures wrote condolence messages to the family of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk after he was fatally shot on September 10, 2025, but Mick Jagger's purported reaction to the news is a fabrication. A review of the Rolling Stones frontman's social media accounts found no trace of the post, which in fact matches one attributed to a former NFL player.

"Charlie Kirk news got me SICK! Jesus is coming soon!!!" reads Jagger's supposed message on X.

It was shared as part of a graphic, over images of the English rocker and Kirk, on Facebook by a Papua New Guinea-based user on September 18.

"Man, that's not a lie. Jesus is coming really soon," reads the user's post.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on September 22, 2025, with the red X added by AFP

The graphic was shared in similar posts in nearby Australia and the Philippines, and spread hundreds of times among users based in the United States, Italy and Poland.

Another post misattributed the message to American basketball player Brittney Griner, a three-time Olympic gold medallist, WNBA champion and LGBTQ trailblazer, who spent 10 months behind bars in 2022 after being detained by Russian authorities for carrying medicinal cannabis (archived link).

Kirk, a polarising figure with a massive following among young conservatives, was shot and killed during a university event in Utah (archived here and here).

State authorities have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with murder and are pursuing the death penalty in the case against him.

US President Donald Trump called Kirk "a giant of his generation", with the top brass of Trump's administration joining tens of thousands at a memorial event that some US media likened to a state funeral (archived link).

But a search through 82-year-old Jagger's verified X, Facebook and Instagram accounts shows he has not posted about the American right-wing leader.

As of September 24, Jagger's most recent post on all three platforms was shared on September 4 -- a clip of him playing the harmonica (archived here, here and here).

Screenshots showing the latest posts on Mick Jagger's verified X, Facebook and Instagram pages

A keyword search on Facebook of the language used in the false posts led to a post on the verified NFL Talk page from September 11 that attributed the quote to former NFL player Golden Tate (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the NFL Talk post (right)

The post was shared on the X account of "ShowtimeTate" on the same day; the handle is the same as Tate's verified Instagram and Threads accounts that also share similar content (archived here, here and here).

Screenshot of the X post shared on September 10, 2025

Jagger's representation did not respond to a request for comment.

Marian-Andrei Rizoiu, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney who studies the spread of misinformation, said that generally "using celebrities and big names give a weight and credibility to the posts, which is also more click-baity" (archived link).

"Sometimes there's content being shared that is not fact-checked by the people sharing it... it's a mixture of clickbait and opportunism," he told AFP by phone on September 23.

AFP has previously debunked false claims about celebrities mourning Kirk.

Rolling Stone magazine has also fact-checked AI-generated content purporting to show Jagger and other musicians honouring Kirk with concert tributes (archived link).

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