Claim: A video shows two instances in which a young Imran Khan is seen kissing women in a social setting.
Fact: The video includes clips that are digitally manipulated. In one of the two clips, an image of Imran Khan with former British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was used as a base to fabricate the footage.
X user @DrSyeda_Sadaf shared a video (archive) comprised of two short clips, which show Khan kissing women, writing,
“میرا کام آپ تک پہنچانا تھا ۔۔ اب جنگل کے آگ کی طرح پھیلانا آپکا سب کا کام ہے۔۔۔
⛔️ریاست مدینہ کا دعویدار اور شریعت نافذ کرنے والا تو کنجر نکلا ۔۔
⛔️بشری بی بی آپ نے زخمیوں اور شہیدوں کا ثبوت تو نہیں دیا مگر ہم نے آپکو عمران خان کے کنجر ہونے کا ثبوت دے دیا۔۔۔
⛔️یہ کلپ الیکٹرانک میڈیا تک پہنچائیں ہمت کریں”
[Translated from Urdu: My job was to have this delivered to you. Now it’s your job to spread it like wildfire.
⛔️ The claimant of the state of Madinah and the enforcer of Shariat turned out to be a scoundrel.
⛔️ Bushra Bibi, you did not give proof of the injured and the martyred, but we gave you the proof of Imran Khan’s concubine.
⛔️ Dare to deliver this clip to electronic media ]
Imran Khan
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, born in 1952 in Lahore, enjoyed a privileged upbringing as the son of a civil engineer. He studied in Lahore before attending Oxford University, where his cricket talent blossomed, leading to a two-decade-long international career and Pakistan’s historic 1992 World Cup victory, reported The Guardian.
In his youth, Khan gained a reputation as a playboy on the London nightclub scene, though he denied drinking alcohol, according to the BBC. After retiring from cricket, he transitioned into philanthropy, raising millions for a cancer hospital in his mother’s memory, which later inspired his political career.
He married British heiress Jemima Goldsmith in 1995. The couple had two sons before they divorced in 2004. The BBC report further highlighted that his second marriage to journalist Reham Khan in 2015 lasted less than a year, while his third wife, Bushra Watto, whom he married in 2018, was described as his spiritual adviser. Khan’s efforts to reform his playboy image included public displays of devotion to Islam, such as avoiding appearances that might spark controversy, the report added.
Fact or Fiction?
Visual inconsistencies in the footage indicate that the video was fabricated likely using techniques associated with deepfakes, which employ artificial intelligence to generate realistic yet fake media.
A reverse search of keyframes from the video failed to yield any corresponding images or footage for the first clip, and the woman could not be identified.
However, we traced the keyframes in the second clip to photographs of Imran Khan with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former British socialite convicted of child sex trafficking, on Shutterstock, a global stock photography website.
The third image in the carousel above has been manipulated and incorporated into the video. While the original image of Khan and Maxwell is in proper colours, the segment in the video where they appear to kiss is overexposed, with highly saturated colours. At one point, the background blurs, and a peachish hue overlays the video. This strongly suggests that the image was used as a base to create the fabricated video.
The first part of the clip in black-and-white also appears to have been fabricated similarly. It contains numerous such inconsistencies, for example, the facial features of the man on the left side of the frame gradually disappear and distort as the video progresses.
Additionally, when the woman leans in to kiss Khan, her nose seems to bend unnaturally as she nears his face. Her hands also appear distorted during the hug and seem to have several extra fingers. These irregularities confirm that the video has been digitally manipulated in some way.
Furthermore, we conducted a keyword search to verify if any reports of such an event from Khan’s past had emerged at any point in time. However, we did not find any credible news reports or photographic evidence to substantiate the claim.
Virality
The video was shared here, here, here, and here on X. Archived here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook, it was shared here and here.
Conclusion: A video showing a young Imran Khan kissing women is not authentic. The visual inconsistencies and the lack of credible evidence confirm that the video is doctored and does not depict real events.
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Background image in cover photo: TERRY O’NEILL/ICONIC IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
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