White House Deputy Chief of Staff shares doctored Bollywood video of new FBI boss
Clip features Kash Patel’s face on the body of Bollywood star Ranveer Singh
CLAIM
The White House’s Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino shared a video showing Kash Patel’s face on the body of a man dancing in a crowd of people, with the caption: “Congratulations to the new Director of the FBI.”
BACKGROUND
Kash Patel became the new head of the FBI after a confirmation hearing in the senate on Thursday, February 20.
Patel’s nomination was approved in a 51-49 vote. Democrats, some former Republicans, and legal experts have raised concerns that Patel’s closeness to the Trump team and his sharing of theories surrounding the “deep state” will impact his work at the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A video was shared by Dan Scavino, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House, to congratulate Kash Patel on his confirmation.
In a post accompanying the video on X, Scavino wrote: “Congratulations to the new Director of the FBI”.
The video appears to feature Kash Patel entering an arena of men dressed in traditional Indian warrior dress while a song plays out in the background, before a group dance performance takes place.
The background music is the song Malhari by Indian singer Vishal Dadlani, which we were able to identify using Shazam software. Dadlani is a famous Bollywood musical composer and singer, and is responsible for hit music in India as well as collaborations with international artists.
Patel is the first Indian-American to lead the FBI.
METHOD
Although the video is obviously altered, we wanted to find the source of the footage shared by such a high-profile White House official.
The clip features a logo for two X accounts — @drefanzor and @mad_liberals. The @drefanzor page self-described itself in its bio as a profile dedicated to “doctored videos”, and featured clips with the faces of key Trump administration officials including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
To find the original video, we carried out a reverse image search on stills of the clip.
This led us to the official music video for the song Malhari. The 3:52-minute video shows the warriors dancing as the music plays in the background.
From this analysis, we can confirm the video originated from the film Bajirao Mastani. It is a Hindi-language historical epic story based on the novel Rau, by Nagnath S. Inamdar.
The clip used for the Kash Patel video was published to YouTube as a music video for the song Malhari.
RATING
The clip features Kash Patel’s face on the body of Bollywood star Ranveer Singh in a clip from the film Bajirao Mastani.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: Congratulations to the new Director of the FBI, @Kash_Patel! [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
X (formerly Twitter). (2025). Available at: @drefanzor [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].
Youtube.com. (2025). Available at: Malhari Full Video Song | Bajirao Mastani | Ranveer Singh [Accessed 21 Feb. 2025].