See Photos as Taylor Swift is Photographed Eating Ice Cream as Children Cry…

A social media post claimed she flew to Africa on her private jet “just to take this photo.”

A photo is circulating online, purportedly showing musician Taylor Swift holding an ice cream cone as children beside her cry. A November 2024 X post with the image, which has since been deleted but is archived here, amassed at least 1.8 million views before it was removed.

A screenshot in the X post claimed: “All I know is that she went to Africa and flew on her private jet just to take this photo.”

The image supposedly showing Swift also appeared on a blog in August, Threads in September and X in October. Months earlier, in 2023, we found other instances of the picture on social media when one Reddit user claimed it was “from the Africa leg of her tour.”

Reverse-image search results showed that the photo had been shared on iFunny, a meme website, as well. However, no reliable news sources posted the picture, nor was it published on any of Swift’s official social media accounts.

Moreover, the image had telltale signs of being generated using artificial intelligence (AI) software. For example, a child’s body in the center of the picture was deformed, and several hands in the background were unnaturally shaped and blurred.

In sum, because the photo was created using AI software, we have rated it as fake. Furthermore, when the image first gained popularity online in 2023, Swift had not made a trip to a small village in Africa or anywhere else on the continent. She was instead in South America for a run of performances in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as part of “The Eras Tour.”