Media Misreporting: This Virat Kohli ‘Statue’ at NYC's Times Square Is Not Real!

In all their social media posts, Duroflex did mention that the video was created using CGI.

Fact-Check: The advertisement is created using CGI. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

Visuals of a life-sized statue of cricketer Virat Kohli at Times Square in New York, USA are being shared on social media platforms.

• Several news outlets such as News18, LiveMint, The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times and Money Control published stories on the alleged flamboyant statue of Kohli that was 'recently unveiled.'

• Apart from media outlets, social media users also posted similar claims.

• Swipe right to see some of the claims.

Here is an archive of the report. 

Here is an archive of the report. 

Here is an archive of the report. 

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is this true?: The statue is not real as suggested in these posts.

• It is an advertisement by Duroflex, a mattress company which has created these visuals of Kohli using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), which they mentioned in all their social media posts.

How did we find out?: Upon doing a Google reverse image search on the visuals, we came across posts on Duroflex's social media pages.

• We went through the posts and noticed that the company had put a "CGI" hashtag or a mention in their titles or captions.

• The YouTube video noted CGI in their title. You can see the video here.

Here is close-up of their post on YouTube.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint) 

Similarly, their posts on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram noted CGI as a hashtag.

Here is close-up of their post on X.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint) 

Here is close-up of their post on Instagram.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint) 

• The CGI tags indicate that the visuals used in the advertisement are not real.

• We also looked at the live feed of Times Square on EarthCam's YouTube channel and did not spot Kohli's statue.

EarthCam's older visuals of the spot, also do not show Kohli's statue.

The company has previously employed the use of CGI in other campaigns, mentioning the same, as seen here. Some more examples can be seen at the links here, here, and here.

What is CGI?: Computer-generated imagery, also known as CGI, is a type of technology or computer graphics application used to create or enhance images in various fields such as art, media, videos or games. These images can be either still or moving.

Conclusion: Media outlets and social media users have falsely shared CGI-created of Virat Kohli's statue which is a Duroflex advertisement, as real.

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