Fact Check: Viral Video Claiming Abhishek Bachchan’s Divorce With Aishwarya Rai Is A Deepfake

New Delhi (Visvas News). A video featuring Abhishek Bachchan claiming he is divorcing his wife Aishwarya Rai is going viral on social media.

Vishvas News’ investigation reveals that the viral video is a deepfake. The original footage,  from about two years ago, features him discussing a photo event, but his voice has been altered using deepfake technology to create a misleading narrative.

What is going viral?

Facebook user Gossip TV shared the viral video with the caption, “Abhishek Bachchan confirms his divorce with Aishwarya.”

Investigation

To verify the claim, we used the Invid tool to extract the key frames from the video and conducted a Google reverse image search. We found a report on the Navbharat Times website, published on September 15, 2023, that contained a portion of the original video. In that video, Abhishek is seen discussing a photo event.

Using this information, we conducted further Google searches with relevant keywords and found the full video on Abhishek Bachchan’s official Instagram account, shared on November 7, 2022. In the video, he talks about an NGO program Nanhi Kali and encourages participation, to support the education of underprivileged girls.

For further verification, we contacted our partner DAU (an MCA initiative), who analysed the video using the AI detection tool Hive Moderation. The analysis revealed that 80% of the audio was AI-generated, indicating that the audio had been altered.

We also used the Invid Advanced tool, which confirmed that the audio was up to 70% AI-generated.

For more information, we reached out to Smita Srivastava, an entertainment journalist at Dainik Jagran, who confirmed that the viral claim is false and no official statement regarding the divorce has been made yet.