Video of nude man dragging woman down hotel corridor is not Hunter Biden
Man dragging woman down hotel corridor is not U.S. President's son
CLAIM
A video showing a naked man running down a hotel corridor after a woman, before assaulting her and dragging her back into a room, purported to show Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. President Joe Biden.
BACKGROUND
The video was posted by several accounts including that of former WWE wrester Val Venis, who captioned it: “Ummmmmm….. first P-diddy, and now Hunter Biden.”
The footage appears to be from a security camera in the corridor of a hotel. In it, a woman wearing a black slip can be seen running from a room, with a nude man pursuing her. He can then be seen dragging her back down the hall.
The wrestler has become known for his anti-Biden views. He was critical of a fellow WWE star Becky Lynch — an Irish wrestler who was invited to the White House for St Patrick’s Day this year — for meeting with the U.S. President.
That post was viewed 6.4 million times since it was posted on June 8, and reshared thousands of times.
The post came before a date for Hunter Biden’s gun case, which on Tuesday, June 11, found him guilty on all three felony gun charges that he had been facing.
The federal jury found that he had violated laws designed to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms.
METHOD
A reverse image search on stills from this video brings up a sea of posts all making the same claims about it depicting Hunter Biden and all posted within the last week.
All of the earliest versions of this video we could find originated on Chinese platforms and accounts, where it appeared to go viral about a month ago.
A user on Weibo posted the video on May 22, 2024, although it was censored over the man’s nudity, suggesting that even this is not the original. Other accounts posting in Chinese shared it on X around the same time, including here and here. There is no mention of Hunter Biden in these posts.
This leads us to believe the video emerged on Chinese social media and was later reshared by American accounts with the added claim.
The reason they might have thought it was Biden lies in the man’s visible back tattoos. Hunter Biden also has black tattoos on his upper back depicting the Finger Lakes. In images showing Biden at the beach, the tattoos are clearly identifiable.
The man in the video has much larger tattoos and what appears to be a separate design on his right shoulder, which does not match the most recent images we have of Hunter Biden.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the video does not depict Hunter Biden and probably originated in China.
RATING
The video of the man dragging a woman down a hotel corridor does not show Hunter Biden.
SOURCES
@ValVenisEnt / X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Ummmmmm….. first P-diddy, and now Hunter Biden. [Accessed 14 Jun. 2024].
Weibo.com. (2024). 微博. [online] Available at: https://weibo.com/3675736060/Ofro3gMNz [Accessed 14 Jun. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: https://x.com/jike112_jike/status/1792822714178404689 [Accessed 14 Jun. 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: https://x.com/Nasr28389384/status/1793172934426550274 [Accessed 14 Jun. 2024].
Brantley, K. (2024). Hunter Biden shows off back tattoo while on the beach with his son. [online] Mail Online. [Accessed 14 Jun. 2024].