Fact Check: Viral video shows US singer Sophia Urista, not Indian celebrity, peeing on fan’s face
The claim is misleading as the video shows Sophia Urista, the lead singer of an American rock band called Brass Against.
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 12 March 2024 11:50 AM GMT
Screengrabs of the posts making the misleading claim. (Source: X/@i_AkshatRaghav)
Fact: The claim is misleading as the video shows Sophia Urista, the lead singer of an American rock band called Brass Against.
Hyderabad: A video (nudity warning) reportedly showing a singer during a public performance pulling down her pants and urinating on a fan lying on the stage is making rounds on social media with those sharing the video claiming that the singer is an Indian celebrity.
Several X handles shared the video with a caption suggesting that something is ‘wrong with India.’ Pajeet, a derogatory term for Indians, was mentioned in the posts, as a means to use the video to mock Indians.
(Source: X/@i_AkshatRaghav)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading as the video shows Sophia Urista, the lead singer of an American rock band called Brass Against.
Upon a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found an extended version of the video posted by an X user on November 17, 2021. The user stated that the video shows American singer Sophia Urista peeing on a fan while on the stage in a concert.
With this cue, we ran a keyword search and came across a News 18 report of November 19, 2021. It said that rock band Brass Against’s lead singer Sophia Urista had called a man onto the stage only to pee on him while performing a rendition of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Wake Up’. According to the report, Urista had reportedly told the crowd before the incident, “I gotta pee. And I can’t make it to the bathroom. So we might as well make a show out of it.”
The report also mentioned that the singer took to social media to apologise for the incident after she was slammed on the internet.
New York Post reported the incident on November 17, 2021, stating that Urista has apologised for going ‘too far’ by peeing on a fan onstage—while insisting she’s ‘not a shock artist.’
Urista’s band Brass Against regretted the incident in an X post on November 13, 2021. They shared how Sophia got ‘carried away’ and it is not something the ‘rest of us expected’ and ‘it is not something you will see again at our shows.’
How video of US singer peeing being used to disrespect Indians
We found that the video was posted by an X premium handle, Endurance Mensah Clement, on January 23, 2024, clearly stating in the caption that it shows Sophia Urista peeing on a male fan’s face during a concert. However, a ‘pro-Indian’ account, Abhishek, shared the post captioned, “Let alone normal pajeets even their celebrities are disgusting, what’s wrong with India.”
‘What’s wrong with India’ is a recent Twitter trend with people, ironically and otherwise, sharing videos and images of people not from India doing obscene acts in public, blaming India in the captions.
Going through Abhishek’s profile, we found that the user ‘trolls’ Americans by sharing such posts. We found him replying to his post stating that he sarcastically made the post to ‘expose Twitter algo’, which gives reach to anti-Indian posts.
Hence, we conclude that the video shows US singer Sophia Urista, not an Indian celebrity, urinating on a fan’s face during a live public performance. The claim is misleading.
