Fact Check: Viral image of Justin Bieber holding Israeli flag is morphed

An X user shared the image with the caption, “He has always been on their side, he also announced he was performing there after Israel started bombing Palestine in 2021.”

The claim comes in the backdrop of his post on the recent Israel-Hamas war on Instagram in October this year.

In an Instagram story, he had posted a message that read, ‘Praying for Israel’. While he intended to support Israel in the ongoing war, he erroneously used a photo of the destruction in Gaza while expressing his support. He deleted the post and re-shared his message soon after realising the blunder.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that Justin Bieber is not holding an Israel flag in the image.

The Community Notes of X below the post said that the image has been edited. It mentioned that in the original image, Bieber is holding the Brazilian flag.

Taking this cue, we ran a relevant keyword search and found the same image on a Portuguese website. The English translation of the caption read, “Justin Bieber appeared on the balcony and delighted his fans outside.”

Further, we compared both images and found them to be similar which confirms that the viral image is morphed.