Fact Check: This Virat Kohli statue at Times Square, New York is NOT real, it's CGI
Has a statue of Virat Kohli been erected at Times Square in New York City? Many on social media are sharing a videoalleging that a "life-sized" golden statue of the Indian cricketer was recently unveiled at Times Square.
Sharing the viral clip, a Facebook user wrote, "Just Unveiled: A larger-than-life statue of Virat Kohli at the iconic Times Square. This King's Duty, we are going global and making history!" Its archive can be seen here ( https://perma.cc/M3E7-9YQV ).
The same claims were shared by multiple news and entertainment channels like Hindustan Timesand ZoomTV.
India Today Fact Check found that Virat Kohli's statue in the viral clip was CGI â not real!
OUR PROBE
On reverse-searching keyframes from the viral video, we found that Duroflex, a mattress company, made it. On June 23, 2024, Duroflex uploaded this video on its official Instagram channel. We saw that the caption featured the hashtag #CGIanimation. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a technology that uses computer graphics to create images or videos.
We also found the video uploaded on Duroflex's YouTube channel, whose title also mentioned "CGI". Thus, it became clear that the statue is not real.
Looking at the video, we saw a crossing blimp overlapping with a building, which is only possible if a video is created using computer technology. The image can be seen below.
We then reached out to Duroflex. The company's customer support executive Kiran Kumar confirmed to India Today that the statue of Virat Kohli was not real but was created using CGI.
As the T20 World Cup is going on in the USA & West Indies, the CGI-made Virat Kohli statue was a part of Duroflex's marketing campaign. Kohli was made Duroflex's brand ambassadorin May last year.
Watch Live TV in English
Watch Live TV in Hindi