BBC broadcast about Trump-Zelenskyy meeting doctored with crude hot mic audio
The audio claiming to be of a hot mic moment during a BBC broadcast never aired
CLAIM
A clip from a BBC broadcast claims to contain a hot mic moment with a BBC reporter talking about a crude meme shared online about the tense Trump-Zelenskyy encounter in the Oval Office.
BACKGROUND
A clip from a BBC broadcast about the infamous meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on February 28 appeared to contain audio from a hot mic moment leading to thousands of shares on social media.
The footage includes an interview with BBC Moscow correspondent James Waterhouse speaking to a news presenter at the BBC from Kyiv. As the camera cuts back to the BBC studio, Waterhouse appears to be heard saying to a colleague: “Are you done? OK. I saw a meme saying this is the second time ever that a U.S. president fucked someone in the Oval Office.”
The clip was most successfully shared by an X user with the name @NinaByzantina on March 5 with thousands of reposts and hundreds of comments. @NinaByzantina has over 250,000 followers on X, which gives her considerable reach.
METHOD
The earliest version of this clip that we could find on X was posted on March 4 — five days after the Trump-Zelensky meeting and four days after this interview was aired by the BBC based on the news contained in it. The considerable lag between the original airing of the report and the apparent hot mic moment emerging raises suspicions that it may not be authentic.
Two versions of this clip circulated and both contained subtitles. The most frequently shared version of the clip contained subtitles written in Cyrillic, while another version contained subtitles in English. We could not find any ‘clean’ version — meaning one without subtitles — shared on social media. Given that this is touted as taken from a BBC stream, it is unlikely that nobody went to the original to obtain a version without the overlayed text and shared it.
Users also raised some doubts about the authenticity of the clip but late on Wednesday, James Waterhouse posted a link to the original video on X to show that the hot mic moment in the circulating clip never happened.
The post by @NinaByzantina also then had a Community Note added to it sharing the information provided by Waterhouse.
Account @NinaByzantina hits back at debunk
X user @NinaByzantina, the account that posted a version of this clip with the most shares, describes herself as an independent analyst and historian with a PhD on a website she links to from her profile.
She has a YouTube channel where she describes her aim as follows: “I examine and debunk mainstream media narratives about geopolitics, foreign policy, and international relations. I also cover historical subjects focusing on Russia.”
An Instagram account also linked to her, shares photos of her tagged with #montanaliving hashtags, suggesting this may be where she is located most of the time.
In response to the appearance of the Community Note on her post of the clip, @NinaByzantina wrote: “In my opinion, the BBC is a crude, outdated propaganda arm of the warmongering British government routinely sharing half-truths, omitted information, or outright lies: from Russia to C*vid to Gaza. So it’s absolutely hysterical how they scrambled to slap on a community note onto this video.”
RATING
The audio claiming to be of a hot mic moment during a BBC broadcast never happened.
SOURCES
Youtube.com. (2025). Available at: European leaders back Zelensky after Trump clash | BBC News [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
Nina Byzantina. (2014). About. [online] Available at: https://ninabyzantina.com/about/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
Instagram.com. (2021). Available at: 𝓝𝓲𝓷𝓪 ❥ (@ninakokorokaraarigatou) [online] [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Amazing things happen when the BBC forgets [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: In a BBC broadcast, a journo thinking he is off mic mentions [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: There’s AI-generated clip of me doing the rounds [Accessed 6 Mar. 2025].