Video doesn’t show a child escaping Buckingham Palace. It’s an old TV promo
If your time is short
- This is a fake video created in 2015 to promote an E! show called "The Royals."
An old debunked claim about a naked child escaping Buckingham Palace is getting fresh attention on social media in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
“13 or 15 year old boy escapes Buckingham Palace,” reads the text in a TikTok video shared on Instagram on Sept. 9. “How do you explain this?”
In the clip, an apparent tourist appears to zoom her phone camera in on a naked person using a bedsheet to descend from a palace window before falling.
The Instagram post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
A simple internet search reveals that this is fake, and that it’s been scrutinized by fact-checkers before.
The video first went viral back in 2015, though then it was described as showing a man climbing out of the window, not a child. It was uploaded on what appeared to be a tourist’s YouTube channel. But it was fake — a promotion by E! for its fictional show “The Royals.”
The clip went viral. But it doesn’t show a child escaping the palace. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!
Our Sources
Instagram post, Sept. 9, 2022
Adweek, Video of Naked Man Is Just E! Promo, March 3, 2015
E! News, Viral Video of Naked Man Escaping From Buckingham Palace Revealed to Be Launch of D-Throned Tabloid for E!'s The Royals!, March 3, 2015
