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Fact check: Fake Trump tweet echoing Halsey song lyrics originally began as a joke

Portrait of Devon Link Devon Link
USA TODAY

The claim: In seeming to acknowledge his election defeat, President Trump tweeted statement mirroring Halsey lyrics

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency his Twitter profile has drawn lots of attention. Now, as he refuses to acknowledge his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden, online jokesters are doctoring images to create fake Trump tweets suggesting he has acknowledged defeat.

“I was red… and you liked him cause he was blue.. then you touched me.. and i was a lilac sky.. but then you all decided that purple just wasn’t for you,” reads an Instagram post containing what appears to be a quote of a tweet from Trump.

The post contains some obvious signs that the tweet is not authentic like the phrases it uses and the blue and red heart emojis.

The screenshot of the fake tweet was shared Nov. 10 to Instagram, where it received thousands of likes. Absurd as this tweet may seem, some Instagram users questioned, and pleaded, for it to be real.

“WAS THIS A REAL TWEET AHAHHAHA,” one wrote.

“PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS REAL PLEASE,” commented another.

To these commenters’ disappointment, there is no evidence that the tweet is real and, instead, is an altered image that appears to have begun as satire.

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USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the screenshot for comment.

Phrase mirrors Halsey song lyrics

The statement closely mirrors the lyrics of recording artist Halsey’s 2015 song “Colors.” The song was a single on Halsey's debut album “Badlands.”  It rose to No. 23 on the Billboard charts in June 2016.

“You were red, and you liked me because I was blue. But you touched me, and suddenly I was a lilac sky. Then you decided purple just wasn't for you,” Halsey sings on the record. 

On election night, just three days before Trump purportedly tweeted her lyrics, Halsey criticized the president and his handling of the election on Twitter. In the weeks before the election, the pop star participated in a YouTube interview series with Bernie Sanders whom she endorsed for president in March.

It’s unlikely Trump would have tweeted the lyrics from a well-known recording artist that has publicly opposed him and left no trace on the internet. The tweet’s phrasing far too closely mirrors the popular song’s lyrics to be a coincidence.

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Initial post on Twitter appears to have been a joke

@BhadDhad, the Twitter user who appears to have retweeted Trump, first posted the fake tweet. The image of Trump’s tweet is timestamped 1:28 p.m. Nov. 7 and @BhadDhad tweeted the photo seven minutes prior to that at 1:21 p.m.

“i joke a lot so don't take anything i say seriously,” reads @BhadDhad’s bio.

No record of the tweet on president’s profile

USA TODAY could not find the tweet anywhere on Trump's Twitter profile, confirming suspicions that it was fake.

The tweet doesn’t appear in an archived image of the president’s Twitter profile that was taken 20 minutes after the fake tweet was timestamped. This indicates it’s very unlikely Trump tweeted the passage and later deleted it.

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Our rating: False 

USA TODAY could find no evidence that President Donald Trump tweeted a political statement mirroring the lyrics to Halsey’s hit song “Colors.” The Twitter profile that originally posted the image and statement's absurdity indicate the doctored image began as a joke. We rate this claim FALSE because it is not supported by our research.

Our fact-check sources:

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