About this rating. In August , social media users spread a rumor that three images circulating online showed a young Kamala Harris working as an "escort" while wearing a series of revealing outfits. One caption claimed staffers in San Francisco had revealed that the vice president was once "an escort for judges, politicians, and various powerful businessmen to sway court cases and help push leftist policies in the state.
The three photos can be seen in two X posts below, the first of which was posted in mid-September the photo on the left is repeated in both posts. Although it was not possible to find an authentic source for the photographs, one expert theorized the pictures were low-quality images that did not feature Harris at all. There was also no evidence Harris was ever an "escort," as the captions claimed. Considering these points, and several others outlined below, the photos and associated claims have been rated as false.
Using numerous reverse-image search tools , we determined the photos appeared to start spreading on Facebook, Instagram, X and 4chan in early August, not long after Harris formally declared her candidacy for president. A Reddit post archived and a Facebook post credited the images to a "Glenn Sparks" on Facebook; however, the pictures could not be found on Sparks' account.
The latter Facebook post said the photo showed Harris in the s "with Montel Williams a television host and actor at some awards show. Starting with the second pair of photos featuring a woman in slightly different black and purple outfits, the individual carried a small resemblance to the vice president but, upon viewing, did not appear to be Harris. Hany Farid, a professor who specialized in digital forensics and image analysis at the University of California, Berkeley, looked at the images to determine whether artificial intelligence or photo editing software had been used to place Harris' head onto another woman's body, or whether any other manipulation had occurred.
Farid, who analyzed both the photographs featuring the woman in black, said: "It is a pretty low-quality image, making an analysis difficult. But, I don't find any obvious signs that the image is AI-generated. I think it is more likely that this is a cheap fake and the person just isn't [Harris]. He also ran the photo on the right through a facial biometric system and found it did not match Harris at all.
