No, Taylor Swift didn't raise a Donald Trump banner on Grammys red carpet | Fact check

Andre Byik, USA TODAY
Updated ·3 min read
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The claim: Image shows Taylor Swift holding pro-Trump banner at 2024 Grammy Awards

A Feb. 5 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) appears to show musician Taylor Swift holding a large, red pro-Donald Trump banner at a major awards show.

"Trump won, Democrats cheated!" reads the banner.

The image's caption states, "Taylor Swift blends politics and fashion on the #GRAMMYs red carpet."

A Feb. 6 Instagram post showed a video of the same purported incident, with Swift holding a Trump banner.

The Instagram image was liked more than 4,300 times in one day, and the video accumulated several hundred more likes in a day.

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Our rating: Altered

This didn't happen. The image and video are digital fabrications. The actual event footage shows Swift wearing black gloves and posing with her hands to her side, with no banner.

Trump banner edited into red-carpet footage of Swift

Swift made Grammys history by winning her fourth career album of the year award Feb. 4 at the 66th edition of the ceremony. But she didn't hold a banner supporting Trump at the event, as the Instagram post asserts.

The image in the post carries a watermark from the entertainment magazine Variety, which posted a clip of Swift's red carpet appearance on X, formerly Twitter. The original clip shows Swift posing for photographers with her hands to her side, not holding a pro-Trump banner.

Multiple videos of Swift on the red carpet also show her wearing black gloves. The altered image of Swift shows her raising a banner with bare hands. The video version of the claim shows the same banner and bare hands, though notably the banner doesn't move when Swift shifts her stance – showing it's not a real fabric item in the footage.

Fact check: Taylor Swift holding 'Trump won' banner? That's not a real picture

The Instagram post is a screenshot of a post made by a satirical X account, which took the altered video of Swift from another X user and changed the caption. The satirical account's name is not included in the image in the Instagram post, and there is no mention that the image may be satirical.

USA TODAY has debunked a series of false claims involving Swift, including assertions that she held a pro-Trump banner during an NFL game, posed for a photo with Jeffrey Epstein and wore an anti-Trump T-shirt.

The Instagram user who shared the image did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump banner edited into image of Taylor Swift at Grammys | Fact check