Culture

Oprah Winfrey Shuts Down Wide-Spread Rumours She’s Been Arrested For Sex Trafficking

And yes, according to conspiracy theorists, COVID-19 is a cover.

by Jared Richards  18 March 2020
Oprah shuts down rumours she's been arrested

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Proving 2020 really is just the dumbest game of ad-libs possible, Oprah Winfrey has clarified that she hasn’t been arrested or raided by police after rumours spread online she had been arrested for sex trafficking.

Both ‘Oprah’ and  ‘Oprah did what’ were the #1 and #2 trend on US Twitter on Tuesday night (yes, above COVID-19), as the rumour spread and people scrambled for information.

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It was being ‘reported’ (ie. repeated endlessly on social media without verification) that Oprah’s home in Florida had been raided by US police, with even a fake video of a ‘Reporter’ on YouTube reporting that her house was being explored for secret underground tunnels.

Oprah made a statement on Twitter on Tuesday night US time, disputing the whole thing.

“Just got a phone call that my name is trending,” she wrote. “And being trolled for some awful FAKE thing. It’s NOT TRUE. Haven’t been raided, or arrested. Just sanitizing and self distancing with the rest of the world. Stay safe everybody.”

The rumour began with QAnon, a US right-wing conspiracy theory chain that began in 2017 on 8Chan. Spinning off Pizzagate, it posits that President Trump was trying to take down Hollywood ‘elites’ who were running a child sex ring, and that negative press against him was part of a ‘deep state’ attempt to bring him down. It continues to this day, bolstered by Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and suicide last year.

For some reason, the rumour specifically around Oprah began to spread over the last day, with variations also suggesting Charles Barkeley and Tom Hanks, currently quarantined in Australia and learning how to eat Vegemite correctly, had both been implicated and arrested too. COVID-19 has been cited as something of a ‘cover’.

There is absolutely no proof of this, but it spread absolutely everywhere.

Of course, Oprah’s comment hasn’t sated the conspiracy theorists, with most responding to her Tweet calling her a liar.

We hope doctors are also working on a vaccine for brain-worms.