The viral video of CM Yogi Adityanath hugging actress Kangana Ranaut is edited using AI
A viral video circulating on social media (here, here, and here) shows Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP MP Kangana Ranaut hugging each other. Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: The video shows Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP MP Kangana Ranaut hugging each other.
Fact: The viral video of CM Yogi Adityanath hugging Kangana Ranaut is AI-edited. Watermarks of “Minimax” and “Hailuo AI” indicate AI generation. “Minimax” and “Hailuo AI” are AI tools that allow users to generate videos using text and images. The visuals are used from Kangana’s meeting with CM Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow on 01 October 2021 during her Tejas shoot, where she was named the brand ambassador of the ‘One District-One Product’ programme. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Upon closely reviewing the viral video, we noticed a watermark with “Minimax” and “Hailuo AI” at the bottom right corner. These watermarks are commonly found in AI-generated content rather than real footage, raising suspicion that the video was created using this tool. A search for Hailuo AI on the internet revealed that it is an AI video generation tool developed by the Chinese company Minimax, allowing users to create video clips using text and images.
We then performed a reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video, which led us to an X post by the official handle of Yogi Adityanath’s Office on 01 October 2021. The post featured the same visuals as seen in the viral video and stated that film actress Kangana Ranaut had paid a courtesy visit to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at his official residence in Lucknow.
We conducted a Google keyword search to gather more information about the event, which led us to multiple media reports (here, here and here) featuring visuals from the same occasion. According to these reports, Kangana Ranaut was in Uttar Pradesh at the time for the shooting of her film Tejas. During her visit, she met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at his official residence in Lucknow. On this occasion, Yogi Adityanath nominated her as the brand ambassador of the ‘One District-One Product’ programme. However, in the visuals of this meeting, the two are not seen hugging each other anywhere.
We also found that Kangana Ranaut had shared pictures and videos from this occasion on her Instagram handle on 01 October 2021.
To sum up, the viral video of CM Yogi Adityanath hugging actress Kangana Ranaut is AI-edited.