A Facebook page belonging to a self-acclaimed public figure, Tinashe Eugene Mushanguri, shared a screenshot of a post supposedly made by American singer and songwriter, Beyoncé, capturing herself and Nigerian music superstar, Davido, claiming that the artistes met at her Inglewood, California mansion.
The post had a caption, “After Rihanna endorsed “UNAVAILABLE” Beyonce invited Davido at her mansion in Inglewood, California USA.” and a hashtag, #TinasheEugene, accompanying the screenshot of a post supposedly from the official Instagram handle of Beyoncé, featuring both music stars and a third, not-so-famous individual.
As of when PEN PRESS filed this report, the said post had garnered over 60k reactions, eliciting over 1.5k comments and 300 shares.
However, a visit to Beyoncé’s verified Instagram profile cast shadows of doubt over the accuracy of the information shared in the post. PEN PRESS found a couple of posts made from Inglewood, California, just as captured in the screenshot, but not the image in the screenshot.
Upon conducting a reverse image search using Google Lens, no exact matches led to Beyoncé’s Instagram handle, and upon narrowing down the search to just the figure of Beyoncé in the screenshot, the results led to a photo carousel from her birthday party, which she posted on her Instagram handle on September 12, 2023, during her Renaissance Tour.
A photo in the carousel featured Beyoncé striking the exact pose she had in the screenshot. However, in the photo, she was with her husband, rapper and music executive, Jay-Z.
A reverse image search of Davido’s figure in the screenshot led to a carousel from his official Instagram account, which he uploaded to the photosharing platform on December 24, 2023. In one of the photos, he had the same pose as in the screenshot.
PEN PRESS’ found that the screenshot must have been created by editing a clipping of Davido’s photo from December 2023 into the screenshot of Beyoncé’s photo from September 2023.
The Google reverse image search results, however, led to a YouTube video from December 29, 2023, titled “Beyoncé and Davido were spotted and this was how it happened”. The 40-second clip sped through the entire creation process, where a YouTuber, Gen Rál, created the screenshot by photoshopping two independent photos of the respective superstars and, likewise, himself.
Similarly, PEN PRESS did a keyword search but found no public records of Beyoncé owning a mansion in Inglewood, California, USA, as against the viral post.
However, according to Elle, “Beyoncé’s actual birthday, September 4, fell on one of her Inglewood, California, Renaissance World Tour concert dates”. TMZ also reported, according to sources with direct knowledge, that “the singer rented out a spot called Mermaid Bay—a string of 11 villas located within The Brando, a private island resort for the ultra-rich in French Polynesia,” where she and her group stayed from September 5 to 8 and held her birthday party.
Elle further clarified, in their report, that Beyoncé only shared the pictures on Instagram after her return to complete her tour in Inglewood, which means that she had neither taken the photos in Inglewood, California, nor on a property belonging to her.
VERDICT:
PEN PRESS concludes that the screenshot of the post allegedly made by Beyoncé, including an image featuring Davido, is a creation of a YouTuber, who photoshopped two independent photos of the respective superstars, thus fake. Likewise, the information in the caption is inaccurate. Therefore, the claim that Davido was invited by Beyoncé to her mansion in Inglewood, California, USA, as supported by the manipulated screenshot, is FALSE!