On Thursday, 12 March, actor Tom Hanks took to Twitter to announce that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have tested positive for Coronavirus. They encountered symptoms after travelling to Australia, where they were set to begin production on a film based on the life of Elvis Presley.
CLAIM
Now an image tweeted by ‘The Betoota Advocate’ claims that the staff of Gold Coast Hospital in Australia has gifted the actor a volleyball to give him company in quarantine.
The tweet had received an engagement of over 23,000 retweets and over a lakh likes at the time of publishing this article.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
We did a Google search using keywords “Tom Hanks volleyball” and found an article published by ABC News in February 2015 with the headline: “Watch Tom Hanks Reunite With Wilson From 'Cast Away'.”
According to the article, at a New York Rangers game, Hanks “reunited” with Wilson, the volleyball that he had befriended in film ‘Cast Away,’ released in the year 2000.
“While he was being applauded Wednesday on the Jumbotron at Madison Square Garden, Hanks, 58, was thrown a volleyball with Wilson's red face on it,” ABC News had then reported.
Th official Twitter handle of New York Rangers had tweeted on 5 February 2015 showing Hanks holding the same volleyball as seen in the viral pictures.
Further, the background seen in the tweet shared by NY Rangers and the one seen in the viral images is very different.
On conducting a Google reverse image search on the viral image, we found that the image was carried by South China Morning Post (SCMP) and the caption along with the image read: “A medical facility at the North West Point Detention Centre on Christmas Island. Photo: EPA-EFE”
We found several visual similarities in the image carried by SCMP (on left) and the background seen in the viral image (on right). The similarities have been highlighted in red.
Evidently, a morphed image is being circulated to propagate the false claim that the Gold Coast hospital gifted a volleyball to Tom Hanks while he is under quarantine.
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