by Joe Lycett wants fans to see the various fake news stories he has posted.
The comedian admitted that he has made some “stupid” reports over the past month to see how much national news would pick up. He told his 1.4m followers: “FAKE NEWS! Can you see the stories I’ve been planting in the press? There’s been a lot of silly stories in the news for the past month, and I’ve been coordinating them all. Send me way they are. , with the hashtag #IsThisJoe?”
Lycett, 35, revealed that he had successfully planted fake news in the Daily Mail, The Sun newspaper, BBC news, Sky news, Metro, The Independent and LAD Bible. He will confirm which stories he has on his Channel 4 Late Night Lycett show when he returns on Friday night. But in the meantime he’s asking fans to guess what news stories he and his team might come up with, approaching it with the hashtag #IsThisJoe?
He has already confirmed several stories that were reported in the national news but were actually made up by him. Here are the confirmed #IsThisJoe? fake news stories so far:
Alan Titchmarsh trousers
Lycett has confirmed he was behind a fake news story which claimed North Korean state television had censored Alan Titchmarsh’s trousers. The story was reported by Sky News, BBC News, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Express and The Guardian, among many others.
The gardener and TV presenter even read out the story on his Classic FM radio show. Although Lycett suggested that Titchmarsh might have been involved, joking: “What an unusual and funny news story! But this statement feels almost… written?”
Titchmarsh told listeners: “You may have seen that I made the news last week, as the crux of the controversy was, it’s not something I’m generally used to. I doubt you missed it since I did he all the national news bulletins. that Kim Jong Un took exception to my gardening trousers I thought they were quite nice, slim fit, slim leg and all But when North Korean State TV broadcast one of my old shows gardening they made my jeans fuzzy Censored blue jeans on the grounds that they were subversive and representative of imperialist capitalist culture! I don’t know what it’s about!” He then played the theme tune to Wallace and Grommet’s The Wrong Trousers.
Sculpture by Paul McCartney
Another news story for which Lycett is taking credit focused on Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney preventing a statue of himself from being auctioned for charity because he thought it was “too unflattering”. The artists shared the request on Instagram along with a picture of the ceramic likeness. The story ran on various music magazine and radio websites including NME, Guitar.com, Far Out Magazine and American Songwriter. It was also picked up by the BBC news program Have I Got News For You.
Lycett shared a clip of himself watching the show laughing: “I love the stories on Have I Got News For You…”
raw ketchup
But Lycett is even teasing fans with his fake news confession. He claimed responsibility for a story with the headline “I used Marks & Spencer vine tomatoes as anal beads and now I’m s***ting ketchup!”. However, this story was published in the Sunday Sport newspaper in 2016. Lycett mocking: “Can this be confirmed as me #isthisjoe?”
Lycett said: “The world has been turned upside down by fake news, and I hate it!” He added: “For the past month, me and my team have been putting out stupid, silly fake news stories about things that never happened in the hope that they would take over a space that might otherwise use more hateful or polarized fake news . “
Lycett’s past political protests
The comedian is as famous for his political protests as he is for his humor. In 2022 he called out David Beckham’s support for the Qatar World Cup by pretending to charge £10,000 in protest – although he later revealed he donated the money to LGBTQ+ charities.
And in 2020 he changed his name to Hugo Boss as an act of protest against the fashion brand. Lycett shared the official poll deed changing her name to how the German fashion brand treats small businesses who use the word ‘boss’ on social media.
In January 2022 he caused panic among some government figures when he published a fake version of the Sue Gray report. He later revealed that he lost his best friend to cancer during the lockdown and was unable to be with them when they died because he was complying with the COVID rules.
He recently presented the new Channel 4 documentary Joe Lycett Vs Sewage, which showed the thousands of sewage spills into UK rivers and the sea that occur every year.
Late Night Lycett returns to Channel 4 on Friday 12 April at 10pm.
Read more: Joe Lycett
Watch: Joe Lycett defends Qatar shows after David Beckham criticism
