For many years, a motivational text signed by a Russian actor and director has been circulating on social networks. We checked whether Khabensky wrote this.

The viral text looks like this (the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved): “Someday you will understand that there are people who never betray... But for this you will have to go through a lot of betrayals. Someday you will understand that external shine is nothing compared to inner beauty. Because everything that is outside is before the first rain... And what is inside is always burning! Even if it has faded to barely visible embers. But, just put your lips together and blow gently - the fire will gradually flare up and warm you. Someday you will understand that many of the formulas and aphorisms that you picked up in the world around you are empty, albeit beautiful, sets of words - nothing more. Only those truths that you yourself have reached are important. Someday you will understand that kindness, tenderness, affection and care are a manifestation of inner strength, not weakness.”

This small work with attribution to Khabensky is found in numerous collections aphorisms, and became most widespread on social networks. In just one group "The best poems of great poets. Literature"There are two dozen posts on Facebook with this text dialed a total of more than 117,000 shares. He is also popular inVKontakte"

In 2013, Khabensky admitted that doesn't lead social networks - only his charitable foundation has accounts there. However, after a few months the actor registered page in "VKontakte“- according to him, due to the fact that scammers, through fake accounts, collected money on behalf of Khabensky, allegedly for charity, and made political statements. Nevertheless, he warned that there would be no personal publications on this page, and is still true to his word - this post remains the only one on the artist’s VKontakte profile.

It turns out that at least Khabensky did not post such text on social networks. “Verified” did not find a viral quote either in the actor’s interviews available on the Internet or in any other authoritative sources.

On Facebook, the text without specifying the author began to spread, first in a shortened form in 2011, and then in a more complete way - in 2012, and even then became quite popular. Khabensky’s name in the signature under it appeared much later - in 2014–2015, and at first a fragment of text was adjacent to another quote attributed to the actor: “Someone is missing one woman, and he switches to the fifth, tenth. And the other doesn’t have enough life to love the only one.” And only in the spring of 2016, the canonical view of the “Khabensky quote” about betrayal went viral with precisely this attribution, in which dubious resources with the actor’s “quotations”. One of them, a public page on VKontakte, was even blocked for holding charity fundraisers that violate the rules of the social network.

A similar picture is observed in LiveJournal, where the attribution to Khabensky in the relevant publications appeared only in 2015, although the quote is active spread on the platform since 2012.

The oldest "Verified" publication found with this text dates back to December 24, 2009, when he posted LiveJournal user aiyony with the comment “Hooked.” That version looked a little different - it was addressed to a woman and ended with the words: “Someday you will uncontrollably want to call me. To do this, you will just need to step over your pride - not pride, no. Pride. And find me. What about me? I... I'll be waiting for you. I'll wait." The author was listed as a certain Oleg.

This is where the traces of the spread of the viral text end, but we can say with confidence that Khabensky is not its author. This work appeared long before it began to be attributed to the actor, and then it looked somewhat different.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons.