Update (27 October 2023):
Another video clip of Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar is being shared on social media claiming it as his recent remarks expressing his support for Palestine. Amid the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, the post claims that Akshay Kumar had recently posted this video making a statement, “What is happening with Palestine was not correct. it is wrong.” Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video showing similar visuals was found posted by Akshay Kumar on his Instagram handle on 03 October 2020. In the original video, Akshay Kumar spoke about actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and about the Bollywood drug row that came to light after Sushant’s death. The original video shows Akshay Kumar stating- “I implore you with folded hands, do not look at the entire industry in the same tainted light. That is not correct.” The video was edited by cropping, adding text, and replacing the original audio with some dubbed voice. A few other news reports that published Akshay Kumar’s comments on the Bollywood drug row in 2020 can be seen here and here.
Published (18 April 2023):
A few videos (here, here, here) of Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar speaking in support of Palestine are doing rounds on social media. In one of these videos, Akshay Kumar can be seen thanking Pakistan and urging all the Muslims of the world to support Palestine. Let’s verify these videos through this article.
Claim: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar supported Palestine through multiple video messages.
Fact: The videos in which Akshay Kumar seems to support Palestine are all edited ones. They have been doctored by replacing the audio of his original videos with audio of a dubbed voice. Hence the claim made in the post is False.
We performed a reverse image search on a few of the video’s keyframes in Google; it led us to a news article published by The Hans India in June 2022.
During the release of the film Jugg Jugg Jeeyo, Akshay Kumar posted an Instagram video sending his best wishes to the film’s team. This video has been edited by adding a filter and additional text, and the original voice of Akshaya Kumar has been replaced by a dubbed voice that sounds like him. You can see the comparison between both videos down below.
We performed a reverse image search on Google using a few keyframes of this video. This search led us to a few articles (here and here) from 2020, which contained video screenshots. Reportedly, Akshay Kumar posted a video message on his Instagram about the issue of drugs in Bollywood. This video was edited by cropping, adding text and replacing the original audio with some dubbed voice. The difference between the original and the doctored video can be seen below.
Similar to the previous two videos, we also performed a reverse image search on a few keyframes of this video. In the results, we found the unedited version of this video on Twitter uploaded by ‘Puneri Akkians.’ According to its description, Akshay Kumar teamed up with Mumbai Police to promote traffic safety among the public. The original video is available on the official Twitter handle of Mumbai Traffic Police which was uploaded in January 2023. This video contains two logos on the top, and Akshay Kumar can be seen giving five-pointers to the public regarding road safety. This video has been edited to create a viral video, making it look like he is supporting Palestine. Apart from this, in all the above videos, you can clearly see that the audio is out of sync with the action/his lip movements while Akshay Kumar was speaking.
To sum up, these videos of Akshay Kumar showing his support for Palestine are doctored.
