DEBUNKED: Trump supporters share photo of battered woman… but it’s a fake
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A gory photo showing a woman drenched in blood -- who was allegedly attacked because she supports American presidential candidate Donald Trump -- has been shared tens of thousands of times since it was first posted on Facebook on June 4. But it turns out that the photo is not what it seems.
“The result of Fascism in America…simply because she was a Trump supporter,” wrote Facebook user Greg McCurdy on June 4 when he posted a photo of a bloodied young woman.
The Facebook post had been shared over 30,000 times since, often by Trump supporters who decried the alleged violence against one of their own. Many people also linked the photo with altercations that broke out at a Trump rally on June 2 in San Jose, California.
The photo also made its way to Twitter when it was posted on the Twitter account belonging to conservative news site Conservative Nation on June 6.
Here's what happened to female Trump supporter when she met 'peaceful' and 'tolerant' liberals. pic.twitter.com/H1sUJDwQqa
— Conservative Nation (@Cons_Nation) June 6, 2016
But skeptical social media users pointed out that the photo looked suspicious. While half of the woman’s face seems to be covered with blood, her make-up is still perfect. Social media users also said that she looked way too calm to have just sustained a life-threatening injury. It is hard to imagine someone posing for a photo after having bled so much from her head.
All you need is a simple Google search to check it out. If you copy and paste the URL of the photo into Google, it quickly pulls up articles about the American comedy horror series “Ash vs Evil Dead” (as some Twitter users pointed out).
MY GOD IT WAS SO HARD TO VERIFY WHETHER THIS WAS TRUE @Cons_Nation pic.twitter.com/85OnuwAHfD
— I (@isaacwmiller) June 7, 2016
It turns that the photo was actually published five months earlier by both Australian actress Samara Weaving and her make-up artist… because the photo shows the 24-year-old actress in full, gruesome stage make-up for a scene in series.
Weaving shared this photo on her Instagram account.
Weaving herself is not happy about the situation.
I really hate this. https://t.co/VYhbOYKOWd
— Samara Weaving (@Sweaving) June 8, 2016Actor Bruce Campbell, who stars in “Ash vs Evil Dead”, also spoke out against the misuse of the photo.
“Check your facts, folks,” he tweeted on June 8, calling Conservative Nation’s tweet “sad”.
This isn’t the first time that Trump supporters have shared fake photos and, on several occasions, Trump has actually retweeted these fake photos. A few days ago, on June 4, he retweeted a photo of a black family who were presented as Trump fans. The family later told Buzzfeed that they do not support his candidacy and that the photo was taken at a family reunion in Cincinnati and had been used without their permission.
Trump is also famous for his own Twitter scandals. He has insulted, well, basically everyone from journalists to actors to rival candidates to countries on the social media platform.