Some users on social media are sharing a collage of photographs of U.S. President Joe Biden that points out apparent differences between the images: the color of his eyes and his writing hand. “Blue eyes vs brown eyes. Right hand vs left hand”, the meme reads. Some users allege these “differences” are evidence that the photographs show an “actor” or a “body double”, not Biden himself. This claim, which speaks to the baseless QAnon belief that Biden is not really president, is false.
Examples of these posts can be seen here , here , here , here .
Comments include: “Enjoying the movie? All movies have an ending. Patience. Your gonna like the ending!” and “He has a double that Hollywood made. He’s probably been arrested. They just haven’t announced it because they don’t want our streets on fire again. Probably a lot of them Dems have doubles.”
Some supporters of the widely debunked QAnon conspiracy theory, which espouses that former President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and “deep state” allies ( here ), claim that Biden is not really president and that the military is in power until Trump returns to office.
Reuters has debunked several social media posts resembling this narrative, falsely alleging that tv-interviews showed a “body double” instead of Biden or that he used CGI (computer-generated imagery) ( here , here ). Other baseless claims suggest the White House is a “movie set” ( here , here , here )
WRITING HAND
Reuters previously addressed the two images of Biden signing documents here .
Biden is right-handed, as he explains here: youtu.be/nGrB-5ieeMU?t=75 . The photograph on the left has been flipped vertically to mislead viewers. The original photo captured by the AP here, shows him signing with his right hand as usual.
EYES
The image featured on the top right in this meme is a still grab, visible in this Reuters report here , from a video of April 25, 2019, when Biden announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. The footage is available on his YouTube channel ( here ) and C-SPAN ( here ). A similar frame can be seen here: youtu.be/VbOU2fTg6cI?t=25 .
Throughout the video Biden’s eyes clearly appear blue, close angle visible here: youtube/VbOU2fTg6cI?t=92 . The much “darker” eyes visible in the meme is likely a result of the low-quality imagery.
The image on the top left can be seen on an archived version of Biden’s senator website here . According to the description from Wikimedia Commons, the image was captured on 26 September 2005 ( here )
The image does show Biden with lighter blue eyes, but this appears to be a result of the lighting where the photo was captured. Photographs of Biden from that same year, captured in different settings, expose similar apparent variations of tone, see “lighter” blue ( here , here ) and “darker” blue ( here , here )
Reuters previously debunked social media posts claiming his eyes looked black during the first 2020 presidential campaign debate ( here ).
VERDICT
False. Alleged differences in the color of Biden’s eyes and writing hand are resultant of lighting and a digitally flipped image.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.