A photoshopped photo of singer Rihanna holding a Pakistani flag is being shared on social media to falsely claim that the singer is anti-India after she tweeted in support of the ongoing farmers' protests.
In the viral photo, Rihanna can be seen holding a Pakistani flag at a stadium.
The singer's tweet on Tuesday about the protest has taken Indian Twitter by storm with reactions supporting and criticising her tweet.
She tweeted this is in the backdrop of the ongoing protests at different borders of Delhi by farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh camping there since November 26, 2020. The farmers have been demanding the repeal of three farm bills passed by the central government last year.
The photo was shared by Abhishek Mishra, a leader from Bharatiya Janata Party's Yuva Morcha in Uttar Pradesh. Mishra shared the photo along with some old tweets of the singer with the caption when translated reads, "The new queen of the sycophants"
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Viral on Facebook
On searching with the same caption on Facebook we found that the viral photo is being shared with the false claim
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral photo is photoshopped and in the original photo Rihanna is holding a West Indies cricket team flag supporting the men's cricket team during a 2019 Cricket World Cup match.
On performing a reverse image search, we found the original photo where she can be seen holding a Cricket West Indies crest flag and not a Pakistani flag as in the edited photo.
The original photo was tweeted by the official account of the International Cricket Council (ICC) on July 1, 2019, during the West Indies vs Sri Lanka match, with the caption, "Look who's at #SLvWI to Rally 'round the West Indies! Watch out for @rihanna's new single, Shut Up And Cover Drive"
We also found news reports on the incident from July 2019 which stated that Rihanna had turned up in Chester-le-Street, United Kingdom to watch the West Indies cricket team playing against Sri Lanka that day.
News report on the incident
West Indies Cricket's offical account had also tweeted on the singer attending the match in July 2019. We can spot Rihanna with the same outfit and glasses as in the viral photo.