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William Shatner warned fans to be skeptical of “bizarre” stories about him, adding that AI-generated fake news has been spreading on social media that he’s dying.
The “Star Trek” alum clarified that he’s “fit as a fiddle.”
“I wanted to put this out yesterday but given the day and the possibility that it would look like a joke I waited for today,” Shatner wrote on his Instagram page on Thursday. “There is a page on @facebook that is using AI to create horrible fake news stories about me.”
Shatner said the page is known as The Beanstalk Functions Group, which he said appeared to be an event planner in South Africa.
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William Shatner claimed that AI-generated stories have been falsely claiming he has cancer and is dying. (Gerardo Mora/Getty Images)
“They have created stories that say I have stage 4 brain cancer, was in some kind of fight with Erika Kirk and that I’m dying,” he continued. “All their stories are monetized. Most of the stories use an AI image of me. Facebook Support will not remove the page.”
Facebook told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the page had been removed for “violating our policies.”
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Shatner told fans to be wary of “bizarre” stories about him. (Weiss Eubanks/NBCUNIVERSAL via Getty Images)
Shatner added, “Each story is accompanied by a website link in the post that is hosted on Next.js where some of you may have seen my post to the CEO of that company on X asking him to remove these fake stories. None of these stories are true but they apparently seem genuine enough for fans to repost them across social media and send messages of support to me and my family all while the culprits behind the account make money,” he wrote, adding that this shows the “downside of AI and yellow journalism.”
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Shatner said one of the AI-generated stories claimed he’d had a fight with Erika Kirk. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
He wrote that while AI “can be a wonderful tool in the right hands; it can be used as a weapon in the wrong hands,” urging fans to be skeptical of “bizarre” stories about him.
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A couple of hours later, Shatner shared a photo of himself smiling in a patio chair, saying that his daughter told him his granddaughter had heard he had brain cancer.
“She took this photo and sent it to me to upload to prove I’m not ill,” he wrote. “The people who are ill are those that are spreading these ridiculous stories. I’m fit as a fiddle. You don’t have to worry. This is getting insane.”