Fact Check

Is Matt Gaetz' Hair in This Photo Real?

If a social media posts explicitly states that an image is "not photoshopped," it just might be photoshopped.

Published April 6, 2021

 (Twitter)
Image Via Twitter
Claim:
An image gives a genuine glimpse at Florida congressman Matt Gaetz' hair.

In April 2021, as Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was being investigated for lewd and potentially illegal behavior involving underage women, some social media users started to mockingly share a picture of Gaetz with unusually tall hair:

This is not a genuine image of Gaetz' hair.

It comes from a July 2020 hearing before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee concerning the online dominance of companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple. Here's a genuine screenshot of Gaetz from this hearing (left) and the doctored image (right). It's clear that the height of his hair was embellished in the fake image.

A video of the full "Online Platforms and Market Power: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google" hearing can be seen below. Gaetz speaks several times during this hearing. He can be glimpsed, for example, around the 3:03:00 mark:

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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