Fake X post shared to falsely claim Charlie Kirk revealed LGBTQ+ hypocrisy

Conservative media personality Charlie Kirk has frequently spoken out about his Christian values and LGBTQ+ issues. 

But recent social media posts alleged that in doing so, he accidentally exposed that he’s a frequent user of a popular gay dating app.

An Aug. 27 Threads post shared a screenshot of an X post that showed what it claimed was a social media post from Kirk. The X post claimed Kirk wrote, "Went to check my phone storage and saw the woke gay agenda is alive and well. Is anyone surprised?"

The alleged Kirk post included an image of his iPhone storage with a Pride Flag pointing to similar colors on the iPhone. It listed  Grindr, a gay dating app, as the user’s most used app. It also showed the next most used app was barq, a social network for furries — people with an interest in depictions of anthropomorphic, cartoon animals.

"Nothing surprising to see there, Charlie Kirk, except the fact your top app is Grindr!"  read the X post, which had two million views. 

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We found multiple social media posts that shared the same Kirk post. But a search of Kirk’s X feed and a reverse image search shows the post is fake.

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Instagram posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in an Instagram post

Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz “says that if Democrats win they’ll make (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) speaker of the house.”

(Threads screenshot)

In posts on social media, public events, or his podcast, Kirk has spoken in opposition to LGBTQ+ rights issues. But we found no evidence he shared a post about his iPhone storage and the gay agenda.

We found the same image, which included two additional apps not seen in the fake Kirk post, on Reddit and the meme creator site imgflip. We also searched the words "Went to check my phone storage and the gay agenda is alive and well" on X and found other posts sharing the iPhone storage image, unrelated to Kirk.

A Threads post that claims to show Kirk accidentally revealed in an X post that he uses the gay dating app Grindr used an altered image. This is a well-worn meme and has nothing to do with Kirk. We rate the claim Pants on Fire!