Photo of Stormy Daniels wearing mushroom-patterned dress for trial against Trump is altered
The photo was originally taken in 2018
CLAIM
A photo which has been spread widely on social media claims to show former adult movie actress Stormy Daniels arriving at the trial against Donald Trump in New York wearing a mushroom-patterned dress.
BACKGROUND
An April 22 post on Threads that received nearly 25,000 likes and sparked 1,800 replies showed the photo of Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in a blue dress with a mushroom pattern. The post caption said: “Stormy Daniels chose to wear this dress today to court. I can’t imagine why. 🤣”
The caption suggests that Daniels was wearing the dress as she was arriving to give testimony in the ongoing trial in Manhattan, New York, against former President Donald Trump. The former president is facing criminal charges for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal payments to Daniels, who has claimed the two had an affair. Trump denies the charges and the affair.
Users on other social media platforms quickly picked up and reposted the claim. This one on X has been viewed nearly one million times.
The mushroom pattern appears to be a reference to Daniels’ memoir “Full Disclosure,” in which she describes in detail her alleged affair with Trump. In one passage of the book, she referred to one part of Trump’s anatomy as being “like a toadstool” and “like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.”
The posts sharing the photo of Daniels in the mushroom-patterned dress thus suggest that she wanted to have a dig at the former president while giving testimony at his trial.
METHOD
A reverse image search of the photo brings up these images by Reuters taken in 2018, in which Daniels is in a blue dress similar to the one in the posts.
On closer inspection, the photo on the far left clearly features the same man behind Daniels also seen in the photo shared in the social media posts sharing showing the mushroom-patterned dress.
The caption to the Reuters photos says they show Daniels arriving at “ABC studios with her lawyer” to appear on the talk show “The View.”
A search for “Stormy Daniels” and “The View” brought up several videos of her appearance on the talk show including this one.
The dress seen in the photos and the one Daniels wears in the video is clearly the same as the one in the social media posts claiming she wore it to courts. Also, Daniels has not yet appeared as a witness in the trial against Trump, and although she is expected to testify it is unclear when she will do so.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the photo of Daniels wearing the mushroom-patterned dress was taken in 2018 and has been altered.
On April 24, Daniels herself took to social media to debunk the claim, saying she is not presently in New York and that she has not yet been to court.
RATING
The photograph of Daniels wearing the mushroom-patterned dress is an altered version of a photo originally taken in 2018.
SOURCES
Threads. (2024). Ariaa Jaeger (@realariaajaeger) on Threads. Available at: Stormy Daniels chose to wear this dress today to court. I can’t imagine why. [online] [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Her dress into court the other day??? [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
McCarthy, T. (2018). Available at: Stormy DanielsDaniels’ll book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating. [online] The Guardian. [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
Reuters.com. (2018). Available at: Search Result. [online] [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
Reuters.com. (2018). Search Result. [online] Available at: Search Result. [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
Post, W. (2018). Available at: Stormy Daniels on ‘The View’, annotated. YouTube. [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: I keep seeing this stupid dress photo. And although it is funny, it is not real. [Accessed 25 Apr. 2024].