The new generations are growing up with smartphones and social networks. More and more young people are registering on Instagram, Twitter or even TikTok. But in general, teenagers from royal families are not allowed to go there: “They are either in private, or they use these social networks passively, that is to say without publishing anything in turn“explains the specialized site Histoires royales. A rule that Princess Leonor of Spain may well have broken.
For several days, a TikTok video on which the 16-year-old daughter of King Felipe VI and his wife Letizia has been circulating. The young teenager, in a pink sweatshirt, performs one of the many dance challenges of the social network. It did not take more for the canvas to ignite in the face of unpublished and never seen images of the princess. A royal buzz which is in reality only a deception.
Princess Leonor never made or posted this video for the simple reason that she has no social media account. After investigation by the Royal Stories site, it would be a fake account posing as the sister of the Infanta Sofia, using the so-called deepfake technique, “technique for sticking one’s face on another person’s body“, to make his videos ultra-realistic. The original video was found by the Maldita site: “We then discover that the body belongs to a young Filipina named Ericka Pena..”
Asked by the media in the face of such a scandal, the Spanish royal family confirmed that this video of Leonor had been made from scratch. Information that some Internet users had realized even before the intervention of the clan: “Specialists of the Spanish monarchy will have quickly noticed that the face of the alleged Leonor does not quite correspond to her current appearanceunderlined the specialized site. At the moment, the Princess of Asturias is undergoing orthodontic treatment, including the extraction of teeth.” The bomb is defused, phew!