Soon after the news of the death of the leading actress in the TV series “My Fair Nanny,” reports spread across the Internet that a Ukrainian artist had published an offensive post about the actress on his social networks. We checked whether the musician made the statements attributed to him.
On the morning of May 30, 2024, it became known that actress Anastasia Zavorotnyuk died at the age of 54 after a long illness. Messages about this appeared on the artist’s official social media accounts. A few hours later, a screenshot allegedly showing an Instagram story of Ukrainian rapper Alexey Potapenko, known under the pseudonym Potap, went viral on the Internet. The musician’s post allegedly consisted of a frame from the series “My Fair Nanny,” for which Zavorotnyuk became famous, and a mocking caption in Ukrainian: “Well, Nastya, was it fun to play in a character that makes all Ukrainian women look stupid? It’s good that you won’t play again 👏👏👏.”
Publications with this image became incredibly viral in both the Russian-language and Ukrainian-language segments of the Internet. According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, more than 1,000 posts mentioning Potap and Zavorotnyuk appeared on Telegram, with a total of more than 7 million views. Among the most viral are posts in the channels “Ax 18+"(1.1 million views), "Anatoly Shariy"(596,000), Baza (361,000), "Pozdnyakov 3.0"(286,000), Readovka (253,000), Shot (241,000) and "Solovyov"(150,000). The media also covered this news: RT, "RIA Novosti», UNIAN, "TSN", Ura.ru, "Constantinople", "Russian newspaper", "Arguments and facts", Life.ru, Lenta.ru, "Gazeta.ru", "News", "Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Regnum", "Focus", EADaily, "Ren-TV"and many others. Similar publications are found in “VKontakte" And "Zene"
"My fair nanny" - a comedy television series aired on the Russian STS TV channel in the 2000s, based on the American show "Nanny" In the adaptation, Zavorotnyuk played the main character Vika Prutkovskaya, who, according to the story, lived in Mariupol until she was 15, and then moved with her parents to Moscow. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, it became a relatively popular point of view among Ukrainians that the creators of the series were ridiculing natives and residents of Ukraine. For example, in October 2022, the Instagram account yaktytam published a viral post with scenes that the authors of the publication considered offensive towards Mariupol. Ukrainian media also reported on the selection. For example, "Channel 24” published an article entitled “How nanny Vika disgraced the Ukrainians and Mariupol,” and UNIAN wrote that the actors of the sitcom “humiliated Ukraine.” Even in the publication about the death of Zavorotnyuk Telegram channel “Trash⚡️Ukraine"(719,000 views) made a reminder: “In the TV series “My Fair Nanny,” Ukrainians were portrayed as stupid and narrow-minded.”
The Verified editors first saw a publication about Potap’s statement addressed to Zavorotnyuk on May 30 at 14:58 Moscow time. At that time, there were no such stories on the musician’s Instagram. However, most publications about this post by Potap indicate that the artist allegedly quickly deleted it after a barrage of criticism against him. Note that the viral image shows the Ukrainian-language Instagram interface and indicates that the story appeared for 5 minutes. back.
Next, we decided to find the first post in which the viral screenshot appeared. According to the TGStat service, the earliest publication with keywords was published at 11:21 in the pro-Kremlin Russian-language Telegram channel “🇺🇦 Open Ukraine | Open Ukraine”, however, it was not widely distributed (only 43,000 views in seven hours). Already at 12:35, that is, more than an hour later, the same screenshot was posted by the channel “Heavenly"(83,000 views), and after a few more minutes - "Petya the First"(60,000). All three these Telegram channels were mentioned many times in “Verified” analyzes in connection with the spread of anti-Ukrainian fakes. Moreover, among the fake materials published by these resources, fake Instagram stories of celebrities often appeared (for example, Elvis Presley's widow, musician System of a Down, Madonnas, Elijah Wood, Dean Norris And Moby). Some of these fake stories were also related to tragic events in Russia - for example, in August 2023 spread news that a nightclub in Kyiv announced the “Fiery Makhachkala” party after the explosion of a gas station in Dagestan.
“Verified” drew attention to another oddity related to the time of publication and creation of the screenshot. If we believe in the authenticity of the viral image, then the screenshot was taken at 09:27 (the time is indicated in the upper left corner). The original post did not mention what time zone the person who took the screenshot lived in, but if we assume that the author was in Ukraine, where the time now coincides with Moscow, then almost two hours passed between the creation of the screenshot and its publication in the Open Ukraine channel.
It is also significant that the same screenshot, supposedly taken 5 minutes later, is being circulated on the Internet. after the stories appeared. It seems unlikely that among Potap's audience (on Instagram for him signed 1.8 million people) there was not at least one more person who captured the resonant publication. In addition, none of the news items we found provided a link to the original story, meaning it is not possible to check the presence of archived copies of it, if there were any.
On the same day, around 16:20, Potap responded to publications in the media and Telegram channels. He published two stories and duplicating them fast in Ukrainian, in which he stated that he did not ridicule the death of Zavorotnyuk. The musician called the viral screenshot a fake.
First they buried me, and then I was resurrected and ridiculed the deaths of others...
The Russian IPSO (information and psychological special operation. - Ed.) is in action, but I suggest not to fall for such provocations. Another piece of disinformation, the purpose of which is to portray Ukrainians in a negative light. They often write random things about me, but when our media picked up the news generated in the Russian information space and which first appeared in their news, I want to say: do not trust photoshopped screenshots, so that in our media space there is no news that is aimed at discrediting Ukrainians. This is an example of how they are trying to make us out to be monsters. You and I are a reasonable society, able to analyze and verify what we see, hear and read.
So don't believe everything you read.
More in stories.
Soon Potap published minute video story (video also duplicated in a separate post - in the signature, the artist called Zavorotnyuk “a wonderful actress” and a “wonderful person”), where he spoke again, this time in Russian.
I understand that it is necessary to show Ukrainians in the most unpleasant light, but I want to respond to all the fake news that I just read about myself - that I allegedly made fun of the death of Anastasia Zavorotnyuk. This, of course, is blasphemy because, firstly, I only found out about this today because of this fake news and I offer my deepest condolences to the family. And I ask the fans to support the family - Anastasia and I were friends, we worked together more than once. I loved Nastya, and blessed memory to her. And for all of you, more critical thinking. Question the news that comes out about colorful characters because they are trying to distract you from something. They are trying to direct you to something... to some conclusion. But God bless them, these people... And blessed memory to Nastya.
Shortly after Potap’s statements, some media outlets and Telegram channels mentioned at the beginning of this analysis issued refutations of their earlier news reports. For example, this is what they did:Moskovsky Komsomolets" And "Gazeta.ru" However, judging by the comments under the musician’s post with a refutation, not everyone believed his words. Thus, some users said that they personally saw Potap’s stories, although “Verified” could not find any other screenshot in their profiles other than the one that originally appeared in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel. Editions RT And Readovka, in turn, stated that with his new posts Potap decided to justify himself for mocking the deceased actress. Anatoly Shariy did not believe the artist either. wrotethat "tens of thousands of people saw his recording of Zavorotnyuk's death." Why out of these supposedly tens of thousands only one user was able to take a screenshot, the blogger did not explain.
Thus, “Verified” can claim with a high degree of confidence that the screenshot from Potap’s story is a fake. This is indicated not only by the denial from the rapper himself, but also by the origin of the viral image, the absence of other screenshots and the implausible chronology of distribution.
Cover photo: social networks
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