An edited screenshot of a tweet by pop star Rihanna, seemingly taking a dig at Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut, has gone viral on social media. The text of the fake tweet reads, “I pay the dancers in my show more than her last five films have earned.”
This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir, which prompted Ranaut to lash out and slut-shame the actor-singer.
CLAIM
Several users shared a screenshot of the tweet with the hashtag ‘farmers protest’.
One user, Bilal Ahmed, garnered over 1,900 shares and 1,000 likes at the time of writing this article.
![This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir.](https://images.thequint.com/thequint%2F2021-02%2Fd4ec6ab2-e9ce-439f-ae3f-01d30b141264%2F1.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
![This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir.](https://images.thequint.com/thequint%2F2021-02%2F8b719fe6-8aca-478c-97dd-3cafc8aba830%2F2.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
![This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir.](https://images.thequint.com/thequint%2F2021-02%2F8eb834dd-21f1-4df8-a240-dc7733e1b896%2F3.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
![This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir.](https://images.thequint.com/thequint%2F2021-02%2Fc8479f8e-f553-45f1-8ee8-debbe2479ae2%2F4.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We noticed that the viral tweet had the handle, ‘@username,’ when in fact, the pop singer tweets with the handle, ‘@rihanna.’
Further, all of Rihanna’s recent tweets have been made out of ‘Twitter for iPhone’ and not ‘Twitter for Android,’ as seen in the fake tweet.
Here’s a comparison of the edited screenshot and a real tweet by Rihanna.
![This comes after Rihanna’s tweet highlighting the ongoing farmers’ protest caused a global stir.](https://images.thequint.com/thequint%2F2021-02%2F20c9aad2-426a-44d9-bf44-5569398404e1%2FComparison_between_a_tweets_for_WebQoof.gif?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
We then looked through the tweets made by the celebrity on her account and did not find the viral text. Since the fake tweet is dated 6 February, we also looked at the archives of Rihanna’s account for 6 February and 7 February on the Wayback Machine and did not find the viral tweet.
Although, it can be argued that the tweet was deleted before it was archived, but the difference in the handle name is a giveaway that the tweet is fake.
Evidently, the tweet has been edited and falsely attributed to Rihanna.
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