A social media post claiming that ‘Rihanna named her baby after Indian farmer protestor ‘Rakesh Tikait’ is being shared widely across all platforms. The post shares a purported screenshot of a tweet by a UK-based news agency ‘The Independent’ which shares an image of Rihanna with an accompanying text which reads ‘Rihanna named her baby after Indian farmer protestor Tikait’. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Rihanna named her baby after Indian farmer protestor Rakesh Tikait.
Fact: Rihanna has not made any such announcement saying she would name her baby after Indian farmer leader Rakesh Tikait. There are no reports in this regard. Further, the screenshot of the viral ‘the Independent’ tweet is digitally edited. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
There are no such reports about Rihanna planning to name her baby after Indian farmer leader Rakesh Tikait. Further, if Rihanna had indeed made any announcement in this regard, the entire media would have reported it. However, we could not find any such reports.
As far as the screenshot of ‘The Independent’ tweet is concerned, The Independent shared the same article on 14 March 2022 (here). However, the text accompanying the actual tweet is the same as the title of the article, which is ‘Rihanna reflects on rebellious pregnancy style’. However, the text accompanying this article has been edited in the viral tweet.
Thus, it is evident that the viral screenshot is created digitally by editing the 14 March tweet of ‘The Independent’. Further, the verified symbol visible in the viral screenshot also proves that it is digitally created, as it is darker in colour compared to the actual one.
Earlier on 02 February 2021, Rihanna tweeted about farmers protesting against the farm laws in India. It is in this context the news about her baby is linked to the farmers’ leader. However, none of the ‘The Independent’ articles (here and here) or for that matter the reports of any other news agency mention any such news in line with the claim. Hence, all these establish that the viral news of Rihanna naming her baby after Rakesh Tikait is not true.
To sum it up, the purported screenshot of the tweet saying Rihanna would name her baby after Rakesh Tikait is digitally edited.
