Is this Kamala Harris in a McDonald's uniform? No, the viral image is fake

What is the claim?

Social media users have been circulating images of the current Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, dressed in a McDonald’s uniform ahead of the upcoming United States (U.S.) presidential elections.

One post on X (formerly Twitter) claims, “Look what I found, Kamala in a McDonald's uniform.” It has garnered 4.1 million views and 16,000 likes and has been shared more than 5,500 times. Archives of posts making this claim can be viewed here, here, and here. 

The image has also been shared on Facebook, with archived versions available here and here.

Screenshots of the viral post circulating on social media. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

The image surfaced amid ongoing political discussions regarding Harris' statement about her working at McDonald’s as a student. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has accused Harris of lying about her employment at the fast-food chain. 

According to a CNBC report, McDonald’s has stated that while Harris has “fond memories” of working at an Alameda County location, neither the company nor its franchisees maintain records for all positions dating back to the early 1980s.

Our investigation found that the image is fake. An old photograph of a deceased woman was digitally altered to superimpose Harris' face.

What we found 

Through a reverse image search, we discovered the original photo on the memorial website ‘Regan Family’ (archived here) for Suzanne Marie Bernier, who passed away in 2007. Bernier was an anatomy professor at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University in Ontario, Canada, and had been suffering from breast cancer. The memorial page features numerous images of Suzanne (archived here) from childhood through adulthood. The original photo is captioned “McDonald's Swing Manager.”

In the photo, the woman wears the same uniform, poses with her hands clasped, and stands in front of the same cabinet seen in the viral image.

Comparison of the original photo showing Suzanne Bernier and the viral image. (Source: Regan.ca/X)

We traced the memorial page's existence back to 2009 using the Wayback Machine, a tool that archives online content. This indicates that the original image has been online since that year.

Our research also revealed that the viral image was created by a user on X named ‘The Infinite Dude’ (archived here). On October 29, 2024, he claimed that the image of Harris in a McDonald’s uniform was generated through artificial intelligence (AI). We have contacted the creator for comment and will update this report upon receiving a response.

On his Patreon page (archived here), he discussed this hoax, stating, “Two AI-generated images went viral this year. One showed Trump in handcuffs. The other fabricated a moment from Kamala Harris's youth working at McDonald's. I created those images because I had to understand something: why do we cling to comfortable fictions when truth is just a click away? As a filmmaker, I've always been fascinated by how stories shape reality.”

Additionally, we analyzed the viral photo using Illuminarty, an online tool designed to detect AI-generated content. The analysis indicated a 98.9 percent likelihood that the image was AI-generated.

Screenshot of the results from the Illuminarty tool that analyzed the viral image. (Source: Illuminarty)

This confirms that the image of the deceased professor has been altered using AI.

The verdict 

Our research shows that the viral image depicting Kamala Harris in a McDonald’s uniform is digitally altered using artificial intelligence (AI). The original image features a late professor, Suzanne Bernier, working at McDonald’s as a ‘Swing Manager.’

Follow Logically Facts for coverage and fact-checking of the U.S. Election 2024 here.