Clip shows artist lip-syncing Gaza poem, not journalist reciting it at Oscars | Fact check

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Video shows journalist reciting a poem about Gaza at the Academy Awards

A March 16 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a video of a person reciting an open letter to children in Gaza and celebrities' supposed reactions to the speech.

“American journalist and author Chris Hedges recites a heartbreaking poem about Gaza at the #AcademyAwards2024,” reads the caption on the post.

It received more than 350 likes in five days. Other versions of the claim spread widely on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.

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Our rating: Altered

The video is fabricated and doesn't show part of the Oscars. It shows drag artist Indie Nile lip-syncing to audio from a talk Hedges gave in December 2023. The artist modified the video by adding in background and reaction clips from the Oscars as part of a social commentary on the war, Nile told USA TODAY.

Audio is real, but setting isn't

No such monologue appeared during the March 10 Oscars ceremony.

The clip is taken from a video Nile posted to YouTube on March 12 in which the performer lip-syncs Hedges reading a letter previously posted to his Substack account.

“This year’s ceremony was missing an important apology,” reads the video’s caption. “Enter Indie.”

Nile's work includes “lip-sync(ing) to different characters whose voices and messages I admire," the artist told USA TODAY.

“In this specific instance, I picked the voice of Chris Hedges and added it to the Oscars as a commentary on the importance of bringing such an empathetic voice to the world stage,” Nile said.

The audio in Nile's video matches that of Hedges' recitation of the letter at a Sanctuary for Independent Media event in December 2023.

Fact check: Newborn crisis in Gaza is real, but photo in viral post predates current war

FILE - An Oscar statue appears outside the Dolby Theatre for the 87th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 21, 2015. The 96th Oscars will be held on March 10, 2024. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - An Oscar statue appears outside the Dolby Theatre for the 87th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 21, 2015. The 96th Oscars will be held on March 10, 2024. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

Additionally, photos of Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, do not match the person in the clip.

Though the letter wasn't recited at the ceremony, references to the ongoing war weren’t absent from the Oscars. Several celebrities wore red pins to the event, and protesters blocked nearby streets in support of a ceasefire. Jonathan Glazer, who is Jewish, made comments that were sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza while accepting his Oscar for the Holocaust-themed "The Zone of Interest," sparking both outrage and support.

USA TODAY has previously debunked claims about the Oscars, including that a collage showed actors’ reactions to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 ceremony and that Rock issued a statement apologizing to the Smith family after the incident.

Check Your Fact and Factly also debunked the claim.

USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Clip of Gaza poem performance at the Oscars is altered | Fact check