Fake News: Galveston Man Did NOT Book A Prostitute - She Did NOT Turn Out To Be His Wife

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Galveston Man Did NOT Book A Prostitute - She Did NOT Turn Out To Be His Wife

Did a man in Galveston, Texas book a prostitute via a website and did she turn out to be his own wife? No, that's not true. A fake news site simply copied an earlier hoax and change the location. The story is quite old and was made up. The events described are not real.

The story originated from an article published by TVTNews on August 30, 2018 titled "Galveston man booked a prostitute - and she turned out to be his wife" (archived here) which opened:

A 52-year old man from Texas was taken by surprise after a prostitute he hired through a website turned out to be his own wife of the past 19 years.

The Galveston man had been using the site for some months to hire prostitutes and meet them for sex at motels in neighboring areas. Last weekend, the man told his wife he was going out drinking with work colleagues, when in reality he was travelling to a motel on the outskirts of town.

Upon checking into the motel the man used his phone to access his regular website used to book prostitutes. According to a statement he made to authorities, he saw the profile of a new "27-year old" woman who caught his attention.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Galveston man booked a prostitute - and she turned out to be his wife

A 52-year old man from Texas was taken by surprise after a prostitute he hired through a website turned out to be his own wife of the past 19 years. The Galveston man had been using the site for some months to hire prostitutes and meet them for sex at motels in neighboring areas. Last ...

About ten days ago the exact same story appeared about a man in Kansas:

Fake News: Salina, KS Man Did NOT Book a Prostitute - She Did NOT Turn Out To Be His Wife | Lead Stories

Did a 52-year-old man from Salina, Kansas book a prostitute and did she turn out to be his wife? No, that's not true: the same story has appeared earlier on various fake news sites and was said to have happened in Elgin, Illinois and Katy, Texas before. It is not real.

And as explained in that article, earlier versions of the hoax supposedly happened in Elgin, IL and Katy, TX.

On the same fake site we also found this article about a Pella man supposedly having the World's Longest Penis:

A man from Pella in Iowa has broken the record for the world's longest penis

A 28-year old man from Pella, Iowa now officially has the world's longest penis after he was measured by the world record authority at his home earlier this week. The new world record holder, who requested to be identified only as Mark to protect his identity, spoke to journalists at a press conference held after the ...

That story looks a lot like several other stories making the same claim about other men in different locations:

Fake News: NO Four New Records For Longest Penis In The World | Lead Stories

What do Gary from Starkville, Mississippi, Mark from Clarksburg, West Virginia, Daniel from Singapore and another Gary from Killeen, Texas have in common? According to various fake news websites they all have the longest penis in the world, measuring in at exactly 19.1 inches (48,5 cm).

It looks like TVTNews is either part of the network of sites pushing the previous hoaxes or it is simply a copycat site.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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