Fact Check: Did Taylor Swift Describe LA Fires As ‘Divine Retribution’ For US Role In Gaza?
A viral video purportedly shows Taylor Swift saying, ‘Israel burned Gaza for a year & a half with missiles funded by American taxpayers, only for God’s punishment to strike the US in just two days.’
- The Verdict: Fake The clip has been altered with deepfake technology to allege that she said the wildfires are God’s punishment for the US’ treatment of Gaza.
What is the claim?
Amid the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, social media has seen an uptick in misinformation and conspiracy theories regarding the cause of the fire and the firefighting efforts. One such viral post carries an AI-manipulated video of Taylor Swift appearing to show the singer saying the fires were “divine retribution” for the United States’ actions in Gaza.
In the viral video, Swift appears to say, “Israel burned Gaza for a year and a half with missiles funded by American taxpayers, only for God’s punishment to strike the US in just two days. For over a year and a half, Gaza has endured relentless bombing by missiles financed through taxes paid by American citizens. This brutal assault has caused immense suffering for Gaza’s residents and left its infrastructure in ruins while the world remained largely silent. However, in just two days, divine retribution struck the United States as a natural disaster and consumed an area larger than Gaza itself. This event raises profound questions about justice and the consequences of supporting oppression.”
This video is shared with captions stating: “America’s fires: A consequence of its actions in Gaza?” Another user posted the video with a caption in Urdu: “This American woman believes the fire is the result of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza and American financial aid.” Archived versions of such posts can be found here, here, here, and here.
Parts of Los Angeles, California, in the US are being ravaged by deadly wildfires that broke out on January 7, 2025. It has engulfed acres of land, destroying hundreds of homes and injuring and killing people. The cause of the fire is undetermined and an investigation into the source is underway; so far, there has been no official indication that arson or utility lines were responsible.
Our research showed that the viral video has been altered. The original video showed Swift talking about the history behind one of her songs.
What are the facts?
Through a reverse image search, we found the original video of Swift posted on YouTube (archived here) by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 12, 2021, captioned “Taylor Swift’s 10-Minute Version of All Too Well Almost Wasn’t Recorded (Extended) | Tonight Show”.
At the 4:14 mark of this video, we can see Swift’s hand gestures and body language, which are similar to those seen in the viral video. Her clothing and the background also match the viral video. On listening to the section of the original video, we found that Swift was actually speaking about writing her song ‘All Too Well’.
At no point in the video did Swift talk about Gaza and the US actions there; further, the video predates both the escalation between Israel-Hamas and the wildfires in January 2025.
While the lip movement in the viral video partially matches the audio of the clip, it appears unnatural at times, an indication that the video was altered using deepfake technology. Further, while the audio bears some similarity to Swift’s actual voice, the words are delivered in a robotic manner.
We also found no reports about Swift having made any such comments about the raging wildfires.
What did tools say about the clip?
Logically Facts analysed the clip using the deepfake detection tool TrueMedia. The tool’s Video Facial Analysis detector indicated generation or manipulation of faces with 54% confidence, while the AI-Generated Audio Detector indicated voice cloning or generation with 100 percent confidence. Similarly, the tool’s Voice Anti-Spoofing Analysis detector indicated with 85% confidence that the audio was created by an AI audio generator.
The Misinformation Combat Alliance’s Deepfakes Analysis Unit, which Logically Facts is a part of, also analysed the video and audio using deepfake detection tools Hive Audio Detector and Hiya AI Voice Detection.
Hive’s audio detection tool also indicated AI manipulation with high confidence scores in the first 20 seconds of the audio track. Hiya also indicated that there is a 99% probability that the audio track in the video is AI-generated.
From the above analysis, it is clear that the audio is AI-generated. The viral clip has been altered using deepfake technology to manipulate mouth movements and AI-generated audio has been overlaid on top of it.
The verdict
A clip from a talk show featuring Taylor Swift has been altered with AI-generated audio to make the claim that she said that the Los Angeles wildfires are God's punishment for the US’ treatment of Gaza.
This report first appeared on logicallyfacts.com, and has been republished on ABP Live as part of a special arrangement. Apart from the headline, no changes have been made in the report by ABP Live.