The viral TikTok of 'Charlie Kirk' getting hit in the face with a basketball isn't what it seems

Turning Point USA founder and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk has suffered some humiliating self-owns during his political career, from criticising men for wearing make-up seconds after saying he wears make-up, to calling a room full of Republicans “garbage”.

But accidentally hitting himself in the face with a basketball after missing a shot is not one of them.

Kirk trended on Twitter/X when a TikTok video surfaced of a white man with short black hair and a blue t-shirt playing basketball in a car park.

He dribbles the ball towards the hoop, makes a shot, only for the basketball to swirl around the net before falling to the ground.

Frustrated at the unsuccessful shot, the man throws the ball to the ground after catching it, only for it to rebound and hit him straight in the mouth.

Ouch.

With people believing it’s Kirk in the video, social media users have ridiculed the political activist’s “basketball skills”:

"I can see why Charlie Kirk is so miserable," another wrote.

Except, it isn’t him.

The TikTok is credited to ESPN, and after carrying out a reverse image search on Google Images, indy100 was able to find a video of the unfortunate incident on the account – albeit the right way round (the Twitter/X video is flipped) and with text added – in a post from July 2022.

Looking at the caption, the outlet credits the video to another account, @Toritoritori (the username redirects to a new one, @ToriSolkowski0).

There, several videos have been uploaded of the missed shot, with the original currently standing at an impressive 11.9 million views.

And we get a better look at the man throwing the ball in a different attempt, with the caption reading “the second try hahahah” and including a mention of the account @zdh0922 – a man named Zach Hand.

There’s even a video of him making the shot in a “redemption video”.

So in this instance, it seems social media has taken its eye off the ball…

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