When a tweep shared a post of what appears to be a grown man posing for a maternity shoot, we had to admit we were impressed.
With the caption “Pregnant wife refused the photo shoot, so the husband did it, because he already paid for it”, it would have piqued anyone’s interest.
The photographer’s watermark and the photos look so professional nobody would have doubted their authenticity.
Pregnant wife refused the photoshoot, so the husband did it, because he already paid for it 😅👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/eA9bliadpe
— Dr Chauke 📚 (@_BlackZA) October 13, 2020
And then Facebook caught wind of another angle to the story.
“But actually the reality is that this story has another funny thing we need to know: Paco wrote the baby name wrong on the birth certificate, so to make up for the wife, he staged this photo shoot with his photograph friend,” wrote Valentin Bosioc.
Meet Paco! The story goes like this: Pregnant wife refused the photoshoot, so the husband did it, because he already...
Posted by Valentin Bosioc on Monday, October 12, 2020
In fact, the story turned out to be fake.
While fact-checking the post, India Today found that the images are at least four years old and are of a Spanish father who arranged the photo shoot as a spoof with his photographer friend.
With the help of reverse image search, the publication found the viral photos in an article by Daily Mail published in 2017.
According to the Daily Mail article, Francisco Pérez of Málaga, Spain, was inspired to stage a maternity photo shoot with his photographer friend Martyn Wilkes. The pictures were taken in 2016.
Wilkes explained the story behind the hilarious photo shoot. "Some 18 years earlier, he wrote down the name of his daughter on her birth certificate incorrectly due to drinking beer on the route,“ he told India Today.
“It was supposed to be Noelia, but he wrote Natalia. To make up to his wife, he agreed to pose for me for the shoot.”