Says Keanu Reeves said, “For me, Trump is the symbol of a successful man and a role model for every young American, something that our…
No, Keanu Reeves did not call Donald Trump a ‘role model’ for American youth
An online hoax purports to quote actor Keanu Reeves expressing full-throated support for President Donald Trump.
The item appears on the website supporttrumppresidency.blogspot.com, and contains a banner headline that reads: “For me, Trump is the symbol of a successful man and a role model for every young American, something that our nation was looking for for year. I don’t think that America will again have a leader like him.”
But neither the text contained in the body of the article, nor a video embedded in the post, supports the emphatic headline.
The body of the article is entirely unrelated to politics. It tells an anecdote of Reeves’ experience on set during the shooting of the 1994 action film Speed, co-starring Sandra Bullock.
The video at the end of the post shows an interview Reeves did with a journalist in Uruguay, in which he discussed his early career and current film projects.
Neither the text nor the video mentions politics, much less the actor’s views on Trump.
In fact, the only instance we found of Reeves discussing Trump publicly is when he appeared to criticize the president’s travel ban during a January 2017 question-and-answer with journalists at a red carpet event.
Reeves told a journalist he believed the travel ban was “just terrible,” according to a Jan. 31, 2017, Associated Press article.
The only other references we found to Reeves’ putative support for Trump were from other dubious websites that repeated the same baseless quote.
Reeves’ publicist confirmed the quote is fake.
“It is completely false,” said Cheryl Maisel, of talent agency PMK-BNC. “He never made those comments nor did he ever do that interview. All manufactured.”
This is not the first time Reeves has been the subject of a fake quote. We previously checked a lengthy cultural critique misattributed to Reeves, which we rated Pants on Fire.
Our ruling
Bloggers said Reeves described Trump as the symbol of success and a role model for young Americans.
We found no evidence he actually said these words.
We rate this Pants on Fire.
Our Sources
Associated Press, "Keanu on Trump travel ban: ‘just terrible’ " Jan. 31, 2017
PunditFact, "Keanu Reeves did not give long speech attributed to him online, publicist says," June 13, 2017
