It is not true that Angelina Jolie is running for president or any other political position in the United States.
On August 2, the website B92 published an article suggesting that actress Angelina Jolie may run for president of the United States in the upcoming elections:
“The door is not closed”: Angelina against Trump in the race for the White House?
Numerous regional media shared the article from this website, including Oslobođenje, Bolja Bosna, Zenit, RTVBN, 24sata, Moj portal, Glas Srpske, Drukciji, Net and Informer.
The introduction to the article provides some accurate information that there has been speculation in recent years that Angelia Jolie will start to engage in politics:
In recent years, there has been speculation that Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie could enter the race for the new president of the United States. Jolie herself has hinted on several occasions that the “door is not closed”.
The “hint” mentioned in the article was actually Jolie’s answer to journalists’ questions about politics that they had asked her in previous years.
We further find out that this news source is Sputnik. What inspired Sputnik to publish the article was the Youtube channel, which, as Sputnik claims – “one of the highest paid actresses in the United States and the UN ambassador recently launched”.
In a comment – rather sexist – the article’s author states that “there will certainly be no make-up tutorials on it”, and then refers to the right-wing newspaper Breitbart, which claims that “the actress actually entered the presidential election campaign by starting the channel”.
One of the best-paid actresses in the USA and the UN ambassador recently launched her channel on YouTube, and as Sputnik reports, there will certainly be no make-up tutorials on it.
Her channel deals with humanitarian work and has more than 8,400 followers.
Angelina Jolie, 44, who is promoting her new movie “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”, has two videos on her channel.
Right-wing Breitbart suggests that the actress entered the preparations for the presidential campaign by launching this channel.
Although B92 did not translate that part of the article, Sputnik also stated which two videos were published on the Youtube channel – one was the video from an event that Jolie held at the Ministerial Meeting of the General Assembly in 2019. The other is a speech from “Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Breakfast 2017”.
And then we come to the “hints” and “speculations” mentioned at the beginning, that is, the statement that Jolie gave to BBC Radio 4 in December 2018:
“Honestly, if you had asked me 20 years ago, I’d just get a big laugh. I do not know. I always say that I will go where I’m needed. I do not know if I’m eligible for the politics, but when I think I have nothing to hide, then I think I’m open to such a possibility. I can handle a lot,” the actress said in an interview with BBC Radio 4 Today late last year.
Then the host of the show, Justin Webb, told her that he would nominate her as part of the list of potential candidates for the 2020 elections, to which she laughed and replied: “Thank you!”.
In an interview with the BBC, Jolie said what Sputnik stated, what B92 then translated, and what was reported through other media in the region.
However, the article did not mention the question of journalist Justin Webb, which did not refer to the presidential election but politics in general, nor did it cite Jolie’s complete statement. On the BBC page where the interview was published, below the audio recording of Jolie’s answer is the question “Can Angelina Jolie have a future in politics?”. The rest of the answer, but also the original question asked by journalist Webb to Angelina Jolie, which Sputnik did not mention in its article, is the following:
Asked if she would consider getting involved in politics, she said:
Honestly, I will do everything I think can make a difference, and right now, I have the opportunity to work with the UN, to do a lot of work directly with the people who need it. I am also able to work with governments. I am able to work with soldiers, so I am in an exciting position where I have the opportunity to achieve a lot without a title and a story about me and my political positions, so I will be silent for now.
Therefore, the statement was shared incompletely to fit into the conclusion of the article. Although this is still being written about, the fact is that Jolie has not announced her candidacy for the presidency or any other election, nor has she ever shown such an intention.
Meanwhile, the Youtube channel that served as an inspiration for Sputnik’s article was removed, and Youtube itself made the decision after it was determined that it was an inauthentic channel that falsely introduced itself as Angelina Jolie. This information was shared by UNHCR with Youtube and Sputnik, which subsequently changed its article, which now contains this information.
Correction: UNHCR contacted Sputnik, saying that YouTube had removed a fake profile with the name of special envoy Angelina Jolie, because the special envoy has no account on social media.
Raskrinkavanje sent an inquiry to all the media that shared the article, but we did not receive a single answer.
We rate the claim, suggesting that Angelina Jolie started the Youtube channel, which was first presented in our language in B92’s article, as fake news. The same claim shared by other websites received the rating for fake news distribution.
We rate all articles as clickbait due to sensationalist announcements in the headlines, but also as manipulation of facts and disinformation, considering that Jolie’s statement she gave to BBC Radio 4 was incomplete and taken out of context, and that the journalist’s question did not refer to the presidential election.
(Author: Emir Zulejhić, Raskrinkavanje.ba)
