Multi-platinum hard rocker Chris Daughtry has publicly vented on a wave of AI-generated photos and stories about him that have persisted on social media for months. Daughtry first took public action a week ago on his social media, sharing the below video post in which he condemned the various AI-generated imagery and fake stories regularly circulating regarding him online.
In that video, he also shared a collection of various preposterous headlines featuring AI-generated imagery of him which have been making the rounds. He also went on to explain that he and his team have repeatedly taken action via Facebook in particular to shut down down the fraudulent content, but have been met with little success. He further went on to state that seeing such lies about him being spread affects him on a personal level.
The video also found him pushing back against a common scam where fraudsters posing as musicians contact fans directly asking for money or donations. He clarified in the video that he would never partake in such behavior and urged fans to only pay attention to the official Daughtry social media accounts.
In a recently published interview with Rolling Stone, Daughtry further outlined the extent of the onslaught of fake news involving him he’s been forced to deal with. He stated that it was largely harmless at first, if not entirely misleading:
“People have been sending these to me for months. And at first I could laugh it off. Apparently, my wife was pregnant with twins again, and she’s had a full hysterectomy [laughs. ] Apparently, I was visiting Dolly Parton in the hospital. She would be like, ‘Chris Daughtry‘ — who’s that?’ You could shrug it off and say, ‘Well, that’s just nonsense.’ A lot of people that were sending it to me, including friends of mine. And I’m just like, ‘Come on, guys, why are you sending this to me? Instead of doing that, just report the page.’
While clickbait and engagement farming with the erroneous imagery and fake headlines appears to be the primary motive, the AI-manipulated content has also found Daughtry being tied to political causes he does not condone. One such post found him allegedly donating millions to Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this past September while speaking at an event at the Utah Valley University.
Another purported to find him refusing to play shows in New York City due to the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. That post even went so far as claiming Daughtry said “Sorry NYC, but I don’t sing for commies.”
Neither could be further from the truth according to Daughtry. Obviously, posts tying him to divisive political organizations or opinions without his consent can have an immediate negative impact on his career. While many artists abstain from openly discussing politics in light of that, Daughtry instead definitively addressed his current stances and beliefs in this new interview.
First touching on that, he stated: “…I think it’s incredible that Bad Bunny is doing the halftime show. That’s what representation looks like. Music should reflect the diversity and the beauty of the world we live in.” He further went on to add:
“I’ve evolved quite a bit as a human over the last 20 years. I don’t hold the same religious dogma I grew up with. I’m all about equal rights, inclusion, equal rights for LGBTQ, and minority communities. I certainly don’t stand with MAGA, Charlie Kirk, Turning Point or any other movement rooted in bigotry or intolerance or exclusivity.
So when it starts lumping me into these groups that do not align with my values and the things I stand for and where my heart is, it affects me on a deep level. I don’t want anyone out there believing that. When it starts to step on or completely contradict things you stand for, that’s when it hurts the most.”
Speaking as to how he and his team hope to combat the issue of fake news in the AI era, Daughtry offered:
“I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of how these things work, but I got to assume that these bots, or whatever these accounts are, are profiting on clicks. We had been reporting some of these pages ad nauseum, and nothing was being done about it, but I think one finally got taken down.
Hopefully, enough of us make enough noise to where this stuff is harder to survive out there and the pages get shut down, and this stuff will cease to exist. I don’t know. But at least I feel like a weight is off my shoulders putting that out there. We wrote this song ‘Artificial‘ because we saw this stuff coming. We didn’t realize how bad it was going to get. I think there’s incredible uses for AI. This is definitely not one of them.”
