John Wick star Keanu Reeves reportedly pays a company a few thousand dollars a month to get the likes of TikTok and Meta to take down imitators.
In an in-depth article by The Hollywood Reporter, it was revealed that Reeves pays a company called Loti to issue tens of thousands of social media account takedowns each year.
The much-loved (“you’re breathtaking!”) star of The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077, THR said, may be the most impersonated celebrity on the internet due to his blockbuster status and lack of official social media presence, which creates a mystique around his personal life.
Scammers are filling the void by creating fake images of Reeves appearing to issue political messages of all types, advertising dodgy products, and, in extreme cases, are creating fake Keanu Reeves accounts that build relationships with their victims to eventually convince them to pay them money. Reeves, it seems, is prime fodder for scam bait, and generative AI is making it easier and more convincing than ever.
Reeves isn’t alone in this, of course. Indeed, there have been a number of high-profile cases in which celebrities have complained publicly about fake adverts. In 2023, Tom Hanks warned fans that an AI version of his likeness was being used without his consent in an online advert for a dental plan. Last year, Morgan Freeman thanked fans who alerted him to AI-generated imitations of his voice online after a series of videos created by someone posing as his niece went viral.
And in May this year, Jamie Lee Curtis was forced to appeal to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an Instagram post because she couldn’t get the company to pull an AI-generated ad that featured her likeness for “some bullshit that I didn’t authorize, agree to or endorse.”
Alexandra Shannon, head of strategic development at CAA, told THR that there is increased concern about this issue among artists, and called for rules and regulations to prevent it from happening.
Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
