A video by E! News reports that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored American celebrity visits to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion began.
This video is a fabrication, and was never published by E! News.
A Facebook video that appears to be a report by US media outlet E! News claims that American celebrities were paid millions by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to visit Ukraine. But the video is fake. It was never published by E! News.
The clip features the company’s logo and claims that USAID sponsored American celebrity visits to Ukraine “after Russia’s full-scale invasion began”.
It includes footage of celebrities, such as Angelina Jolie and Ben Stiller, and claims that they were paid millions of dollars to increase President Zelenskyy’s popularity among foreign and US audiences and make it easier to “coordinate funding programs for Ukraine during the conflict”.
But this video was never published by E! News. The entertainment news outlet told Reuters: “The video is not authentic and did not originate from E! News.”
Full Fact has also approached E! News for comment.
The celebrities included in the video have visited Ukraine since the war with Russia broke out but we’ve seen no credible reports that they were paid by the US government to do so.
The video claims Ben Stiller was paid $4 million to go to Ukraine.
He responded on X, formerly Twitter, saying the claims were “lies”, adding: “I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for whom Mr Stiller has been a goodwill ambassador since 2018, has also issued a statement, saying: “We confirm that Goodwill Ambassador Ben Stiller is not compensated for his work with UNHCR and self-funds his travel”.
These claims have been shared after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on 20 January, after which almost all United States international spending was halted for a 90-day review. This has led to USAID programmes being put on hold and most of the agency’s staff placed on leave.
The foreign aid agency organisation has been criticised by both President Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire who has been appointed head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is not an official government department, but an advisory body.
We have previously fact checked other imposter content that has been made to appear as if it comes from reputable sources, such as the BBC, USA Today, Euronews and the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat.
Before sharing content that you see on social media, it’s important to consider whether it is genuine and comes from a verifiable source. Our guide to identifying misleading videos and AI deepfake content can help you do this.
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 false because the video being shared online was never published by E! News.
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