Fact Check: Don't fall for doctored clip of BBC reporter making crude on-air comment about Zelenskyy WH meeting
Claim:
A video authentically showed a journalist saying, 'I saw a meme say this is the second time ever that a U.S. president f***ed someone in the Oval Office' into a hot microphone during a live BBC News broadcast.
Rating:
In early March 2025, social media users shared a video that allegedly showed a BBC reporter accidentally making a crude comment into a hot microphone during a live BBC News broadcast. The comment concerned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's tense Feb. 28 White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
The video began with the final few seconds of a report about the meeting from BBC Ukraine correspondent James Waterhouse. After Waterhouse's segment ended and the broadcast cut back to BBC News presenter Lucy Grey, a voice that resembled Waterhouse's said, "Are you done? Okay. I saw a meme say this is the second time ever that a U.S. president f***ed someone in the Oval Office."
The clip appeared in posts on social media platforms including X (archived) and Facebook (archived).
In short, Waterhouse did not make the off-the-cuff remark in the original footage of the broadcast, which BBC News posted to its official YouTube channel on March 1, the day it originally aired. In other words, versions of the video that included Waterhouse allegedly saying "this is the second time ever that a U.S. president f***ed someone in the Oval Office" were doctored to misrepresent reality. As a result, we've rated the claim fake.
On March 5, Waterhouse addressed the video in an X post (archived), saying that someone had added the purported "hot microphone" remark to the original footage of the broadcast using artificial intelligence (AI) software. He wrote, "There's AI-generated clip of me doing the rounds - for those who believed it - you can watch the original feed from 7:20."
Waterhouse's post included a link to the official BBC News YouTube video of the broadcast, which is embedded below. In that original clip, Waterhouse did not say anything after the broadcast returned to Grey.
We've reached out to Waterhouse for further comment, and will update this story if and when we hear back.
It was not immediately clear where or when the edited clip first appeared. In a March 6 newsletter, Eurovision News — part of the European Broadcasting Union — identified two different versions of the doctored video, one with English subtitles and one with Russian subtitles. Neither version appeared to have circulated before March 4, three days after BBC News uploaded the clip of the original broadcast to YouTube.
We have also not been able to confirm Waterhouse's claim that whoever edited the footage used AI software to do so. While it's possible that the edited version's creator used AI voice-cloning software, it's also possible that the voice audible in the edited clip belonged to a real human skilled at imitating other people's voices.
At the time of this writing, the doctored video continued to circulate on Russian-language social media platforms. For example, the official account of the Russian news organization Izvestia shared (archived) the version of the edited video featuring Russian subtitles on the Russian content aggregator Zen.
We previously looked into whether a hot microphone authentically caught former U.S. President Joe Biden saying "No one f***s with a Biden."
Hauser, Jenny. BBC Broadcast about Trump-Zelenskyy Meeting Doctored with Crude Hot Mic Audio. https://spotlight.ebu.ch/p/bbc-broadcast-about-trump-zelenskyy. Accessed 6 Mar. 2025.
Holland, Steve, et al. "Trump and Zelenskiy Clash, Leaving Ukraine Exposed in War with Russia." Reuters, 1 Mar. 2025. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-zelenskiy-sign-minerals-deal-white-house-meeting-2025-02-28/.
Liles, Jordan. "Yes, Biden Said 'No One F***s with a Biden' on 'Hot Mic.'" Snopes, 6 Oct. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/biden-desantis-hot-mic/.
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