A WIDELY SHARED photo that posters say shows the Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio and climate activist Greta Thunberg in swimwear on a yacht is fake.
It is an altered version of a different image.
The original photo was published in celebrity magazines along with a number of other paparazzi shots of DiCaprio on a boat off Italy with his family last year.
A photo in the set is identical to the picture with Thunberg, except for the face of the female beside DiCaprio, which is clearly different.
That girl in the original photo has been identified as his teenage niece, who also appears in other photos of the boat trip.
Other images of DiCaprio’s niece, as well as the presence of her parents on the boat, further corroborate this identification.
“DiCaprio and The Swedish Doom Goblin, saving the planet one super yacht at a time!” the caption reads on a copy of the edited photo posted to a Yellow Vest Ireland Facebook group.
Inspired by the Gilets Jaunes, protesters of rising costs in France, Irish Yellow Vest groups have become a forum for angry supporters of various conspiracy theories and fringe politics.
Other versions of the claim on X have racked up more than half a million views, according to statistics provided on the site.
“A young Leonardo DiCaprio & Greta Thunberg have always cared about the planet, ever since they were able to take their 1st private jet or enjoy their own luxury yacht,” one post on X with more than 30,000 views reads.
“It’s one big Scam Club”.
All of these photos, which appear to show Thunberg, are fake.
They are edited versions of paparazzi photos taken by celebrity news agency Backgrid, and published by the New York Post’s gossip section, Page Six.
Page Six published multiple photos that included the girl, who does not look like Thunberg.
In other false claims, social media posts and sites have used the unedited photos to claim that it showed a new romantic partner with DiCaprio, who has been noted to have dated much younger women.
However, the girl in the photos has been identified as DiCaprio’s teenage niece, who was accompanied on the boat by her parents.
Other images of DiCaprio’s niece published online corroborate that identification.
Leonardo has been an advocate of green causes, such as biodiversity and climate change, leading to some criticism of his consumption habits, including his use of yachts. He had praised Thunberg in the past, including posting two images of them together to his Instagram in 2019.
Greta Thunberg is a Swedish activist who became famous as a teenager for leading climate change protests.
“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic,” Thunberg once wrote, responding to adults who suggested she should be more positive.
“I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”
Thunberg’s hard stances on pollution and politics have made her a hate figure in some circles, with slurs and sexualised threats having targeting her since she was a child.
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