Fact Check: Fake Post Says Betty White Described Herself as 'One Bad A** B****'
Claim:
In a social media post, Betty White once said: “I am one bad a** b****.”
Rating:
For years, internet users have shared a meme that contains an alleged screenshot of beloved late actor Betty White describing herself as a "bad a** b****" in a social media post.
(Imgur)
The alleged post visible in the screenshot read:
What can i say? I am one bad a** b****.
The purported quote has sometimes circulated on its own, as in a December 2021 Instagram post (archived), as well as in the form of stickers (archived) and mugs (archived) sold on Etsy.
However, it has most frequently appeared as part of a meme that has appeared since October 2020 in numerous posts on social media platforms including X (archived) and Facebook (archived), as well as in multiple (archived) Reddit posts (archived) on subreddits including r/MadeMeSmile (archived).
The meme consisted of what appeared to be a collage of screenshots of two different social media posts.
The first screenshot, which filled the upper portion of the meme image, described White advocating for Arthur Duncan, a Black tap dancer, in 1954. That story was true, as Snopes confirmed in 2021.
An attribution visible in the bottom right corner of the photo collage of Duncan and White that filled the middle of the meme image identified this specific telling of the story as originating from UberFacts, a trivia account that at the time of this writing had more than 13 million followers on X. An UberFacts attribution also appeared at the top of some — but not all — versions of the meme, such as the one shared in an August 2021 X post (archived).
Although Snopes was unable to find any UberFacts post featuring both the exact wording and the images of Duncan and White that appear in the meme, the account has posted (archived) a nearly identically phrased version of the story on X multiple times since 2019.
The second screenshot showed the alleged White post under investigation here. Unlike the story about White sticking up for Duncan, the post attributed to White was fake.
One piece of evidence that the post did not originate from the real Betty White was the username visible in the screenshot of the post, @BetttWhite. Although the "Golden Girls" actor was active on X, her handle was @BettyMWhite, as media outlets including E! Online and the Los Angeles Times reported when she opened the account in 2012.
White's estate closed that account after the actor died in December 2021, and another user snapped up the handle. As a result, none of White's posts appeared on the account's page (archived) at the time of this writing. However, White's posts dating back to 2012 were preserved via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. In none of those preserved posts did White describe herself as a "bad a** b****."
The @BetttWhite account, by contrast, did not exist on X at the time of this writing, and there was no evidence White had ever been associated with that handle.
A second clue that the post attributed to White was fake was a faint watermark visible over the post's opening words, which we have surrounded in a red box in the below image. That watermark read: "@therecoveringproblemchild" — the handle of a popular meme account on Instagram.
(Imgur)
The earliest post available on that account's page at the time of this writing was dated Oct. 3, 2021, roughly a year after the meme featuring the purported White post first appeared online in October 2020, according to the results of a reverse image search on TinEye.com.
Snopes reached out to Sam Grannis, the owner of the @therecoveringproblemchild account, who confirmed over email that he created the meme, including the screenshot of the @BetttWhite post, which he described as "fake."
Because the creator of the meme said he made the quote up and fabricated the screenshot of the @BetttWhite post, we have rated this quote as fake, meaning the screenshot purportedly showing it was manipulated or manufactured using digital editing software.
Snopes has previously fact-checked numerous claims about White, including a rumor that, three days before her death, she said: "Eat healthy and get all your vaccines. I just got boosted today."
Sources:
Emery, David. "Did Betty White Say She Got COVID Booster 3 Days Before She Died?" Snopes, 2 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/betty-white-covid-vaccine-booster/.
Evon, Dan. "Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches." Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/.
Lee, Jessica. "A Collection of Snopes Fact Checks About Betty White." Snopes, 31 Dec. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//news/2021/12/31/betty-white-snopes/.
"So True? So False? Is Betty White's Twitter a Hoax?!" E! Online, 11 Apr. 2012, https://www.eonline.com/news/308088/so-true-so-false-is-betty-white-s-twitter-a-hoax.
X, et al. "Betty White Joins Twitter -- and Gets Her Flirt On." Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2012, https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/ministry-of-gossip/story/2012-04-11/betty-white-joins-twitter-and-gets-her-flirt-on.
