An old image of former Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson is getting renewed attention on social media, but with an inaccurate description.
“Earlier today, NBA legend Magic Johnson donated some of his blood to the Red Cross to help underprivileged communities help fight COVID-19,” read a screenshot of a tweet that featured an image of Johnson getting his blood drawn.
An Instagram post sharing the screenshot was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
In the screenshot, the tweet appears to be from an account called @cocksources. We didn’t find it there searching on March 20. But the account describes its posts as “all SATIRE.” CBS Sports reported in August 2022 that the image was “posted by a satire account.”
The image predates the COVID-19 pandemic by about a decade, dating back to a 2012 Frontline documentary called “Endgame: AIDS in Black America.” The image is a still from the documentary that NPR published on its site that year, crediting Frontline, with this caption: “Dr. David Ho, an HIV/AIDS specialist, draws blood from Magic Johnson, one of the people featured in ‘Endgame: AIDS in Black America.’”
This moment happens in the documentary starting around the 1:07:00 mark. There’s no suggestion that Johnson, who is HIV positive and goes on to discuss his diagnosis in the documentary, was donating blood.
In fact, on Aug. 23, 2022, he tweeted: “I’m aware of the false story circling the internet, and to be clear, I have never donated blood.”
On its website the Red Cross says “do not give blood if you have AIDS or have ever had a positive HIV test.”
We rate claims that this photo shows Johnson donating blood to help in the pandemic False.
