At the end of November 2023, Russian media reported that film star Robert Rodriguez was allegedly invited to come to Ukraine, but the actor refused due to the corruption scheme proposed to him. We checked if this is a real story.
Messages about how Ukrainian officials allegedly tried to make money from cooperation with Hollywood actor Danny Trejo appeared on RuNet on November 29, 2023. Russian media, citing the American channel MSNBC, reported that allegedly in a podcast of the tabloid TMZ, the scheme was revealed by the star’s manager Ryan Davis: representatives of the head of the presidential administration Andrei Ermak, as part of Zelensky’s PR campaign, invited Trejo to visit Kyiv and demanded a kickback from him. In the alleged interview, Davis said that people from the presidential administration asked that the contract include $150,000 for the trip, but $50,000 had to be returned to Ermak’s assistant. It is reported that Trejo was not satisfied with this and he refused the deal. It is also reported that a similar scheme was practiced by other foreign artists who had previously visited Ukraine. This is roughly how the story was retold."InoSMI", IA "Prime", "Regnum", EADaily, newspaper "Capital C", "Pravda.ru", Ura.ru And other news resources. However, in some publications the details differ: for example, somewhere it is stated that the actor’s manager did not talk with TMZ, but with MSNBC.
The authors of some Telegram channels, in turn, reported that Trejo himself spoke about the rollback on the TV channel. For example, such posts appeared in “Voice of Mordor"(56,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and "Ramsay"(44,000). Chairman of the “Decent Life” party Roman Khudyakov (117,000 views) generally referred to another channel (spelling and punctuation preserved): “Now you understand what Schwarzenegger’s statements, visits by Sean Penn, Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie and other freaks are worth?! From 150 to 3 million dollars, reports the same NBCNews. We live in a world imposed by the United States - streams of lies, manipulation, meanness and corruption." Actress Yana Poplavskaya (30,000 views) commented on the news about kickbacks as follows: “Not like our patriotic artists - some even go to Donbass with their own money. Some receive help with transport from public organizations, the government and the Ministry of Defense. But no one gets paid for it. There is not even such a thought! And the corrupt Western “bohemians” even make money from the deaths of Ukrainians...” Also on Telegram, a writer spoke about Trejo’s refusal Zakhar Prilepin (111,000 views), TV presenter Oscar Kucera (30,000), TV channel "Tsargrad-TV"(38,000), and also "Heavenly"(155,000), "Ukraine.ru"(97,000), MediaPost (81,000), "Open Ukraine | Open Ukraine" (53,000) and "Political navigator"(30,000). Similar popular posts can be found on other platforms: social networks X (for example, I shared a video there Dmitry Polyansky - First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN), "VKontakte" And "Zene"
In some of the publications we are interested in, a 1-minute video is shown. 12 sec. The MSNBC logo appears in the upper right corner of this video. Below is the full translation.
Danny Trejo refused to cooperate with the Office of the President of Ukraine.
During a podcast for TMZ Live, the actor's manager Ryan Davis spoke about his communication with the Office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. In March 2023, Danny Trejo was invited to Kyiv by representatives Andrey Ermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. “Apparently, this was done as part of a general PR campaign in support of Vladimir Zelensky,” said Ryan Davis. Trejo’s manager said that the actor was forced to refuse due to the strange demands of the Ukrainian side. “They agreed to Danny's terms - $100,000 and entertainment expenses. But the people from the Office of the President asked that the contract include an amount of $150,000,” added Ryan Davis. According to the manager, Trejo’s representatives were supposed to return $50,000 in cash to Andrei Ermak’s assistant upon arrival in Kyiv. “It’s quite natural that Danny refused! Even if it was about $1, he would never agree to this... Danny knows what prison is,” said Ryan Davis. TMZ Editor Harvey Levin suggested that in this way the Office of the President of Ukraine earned about $700,000 from the stars. Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, Ben Stiller, Orlando Bloom and others visited Kyiv (in fact, Jolie was in Lviv. - Ed.) throughout the conflict in Ukraine.
“Verified” found no traces of such a video on MSNBC resources: the video is not available on the channel’s social networks (Facebook*, Instagram*, X, YouTube), and on website Trejo has not been mentioned since 2018. A similar situation with the tabloid: we not found This is an interview with Ryan Davis about Trejo on resources transfers TMZ Live (website, X, YouTube). As for the actor’s social networks, we found only positive ones there. statements about Ukraine, and in March 2022 in the TikTok account Trejo’s Tacos appeared a video with the Ukrainian flag, where the actor said that he was praying for the peoples of Ukraine and Russia. “President Zelensky, if you need me, just call,” Trejo concluded his address.
In fact, it’s still November 30 on the website of the authoritative film site Deadline appeared refutation. The editors of the publication contacted Trejo's representatives, who confirmed that this entire story is a lie. “Zelensky never invited Trejo to Ukraine. He was never offered payment for such a trip. Zelensky’s office never asked for a kickback,” the article says. Through his representative, Trejo said: “This never happened. Someone is making it up." Moreover, a certain Ryan Davis, who is presented in the viral video as manager There is no actor on Trejo’s team, and such a person has never represented his interests.
That the MSNBC video was fabricated was also reported on December 1st. wrote journalist Olga Robinson from BBC Verify. According to her, the actor’s agent also confirmed to her in a personal conversation that the video was fake. And our fellow fact checkers from Ukrinform found out, that the fake clip was made up of several videos and photographs that can be found on the Internet in the public domain: for example, interview Trejo 2019, release TMZ Live on Taylor Swift and words Harvey Levin on OJ Simpson. And the video about Trejo called probable fake even on the air of the Rossiya 24 TV channel, but they did it in their own manner. “Despite the logo of the American TV channel, which is credited with the authorship of the video, the information is most likely fake. Well, at least there was no reliable evidence. However, all this is so consistent with Ukrainian realities that it is very easy to believe in this,” said presenter Alexey Kazakov.
The earliest publication with a fake among those that “Verified” was able to track appeared on November 29 at 15:00 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “105th Z Troop"(total 93 views). The video was later posted on channels that should be well known to our readers: “Shkvarka News"(3100 views), "Shkvarka 2.0" (1100) and "Vzwater"(4700) - all of them indicate that the video was sent by an anonymous subscriber, which has already become a classic scheme for distributing fakes. Previously "Verified" dismantled many videos disguised as stories from various reputable foreign media, including MSNBC.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: John Sandau/Dimension Films
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