Fact Check: Viral image of Virat Kohli’s statue in New York is CGI creation
India defeated South Africa by seven runs in a pulsating final on June 29 in Barbados to win their second World Cup Trophy. After India’s win, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Ravindra Jadeja announced their T20I retirements.
Claim :
Viral image shows life-size statue of Indian Cricketer Virat Kohli unveiled at New York’s Times SquareFact :
The image does not show a real statue but is a CGI creation, as part of Duroflex, a mattress company’s campaign
India defeated South Africa by seven runs in a pulsating final on June 29 in Barbados to win their second World Cup Trophy. After India’s win, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Ravindra Jadeja announced their T20I retirements. Virat Kohli is known to be an aggressive batsman, immensely talented, and one of the finest batsmen that the country has produced.
Meanwhile, a video and a few images showing a life-size statue of Virat Kohli went viral with the claim that the statue had been unveiled at New York’s Times Square.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The video is a CGI creation, created as a part of an advertisement campaign.
When we used the keyframes extracted from the video to search on Google reverse image search, we found that it was a creation of the mattress company, Duroflex. We also observed that the video shows a Duroflex advertisement being prominently displayed on the TVs in the buildings behind the statue of Virat Kohli. We found that the video was shared by Duroflex on its social media accounts with the hashtag #CGIanimation.
The Instagram account of the mattress company shared the video on June 23, 2024, with the caption: “Just Unveiled: a larger-than-life statue of Virat Kohli at the iconic Times Square.” This King's Duty, we are going global and making history! Delivering Virat's favorite Duroflex mattress to him in New York, West Indies, and all throughout World Cup 2024! #ViratSleepsOnDuroflex. *CGI video #GreatSleepGreatHealth #
The video was also shared on the company’s Facebook and X (Twitter) pages with the hashtags #CGI #cgianimation.
The same video was also shared on the YouTube video of Duroflex with the caption Duroflex on King's Duty | Times Square, New York City | Virat Kohli | CGI |
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a type of technology that plays a huge role in live-action and animated filmmaking. Hence, the video and images showing the life-size statue of Virat Kohli are CGI imagery, not an original statue unveiled at New York’s Times Square. The claim is False.
