A man named Ronnie Williams is wanted by Merseyside Police for fraud after posing as Ed Sheeran and taking money from churches in exchange for performances.
This is a satirical post. The man pictured is actually from Chester, and was jailed in 2020 for drug dealing.
A post on Facebook, shared more than 11,000 times, claims that Merseyside Police are looking for an Ed Sheeran lookalike.
The full post reads: “***FUGITIVE ALERT*** Merseyside police is looking [sic] for Ronnie Williams Jr. ofScotland road [sic] for fraud.
“He has convinced 3 local churches that he is Ed Sheeran and even went as far as performing The Shape Of You in front of Christ Community Church last Sunday.
“When the pastor was asked why he believed the real Ed Sheeran would perform for 35 quid and a sandwich, he said he just assumed he had fell [sic] on tough times. If you have any information as to Ronnie’s whereabouts, message us immediately.”
While apparently posted as a joke, with many puns related to the singer posted in the comments, it appears that some have taken the post seriously.
The man pictured in the post is actually from Chester, and was sentenced to more than four years in prison in early 2020 for dealing drugs.
This is not the first time a post with this claim has fooled social media users. In February 2020 it was reported that an Australian news station had taken the post seriously after it was shared by a satirical Facebook page and reported on it as fact.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as satire because the man pictured was actually jailed for dealing drugs.
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