Will Smith is facing backlash for an AI-generated-looking video of his European tour crowd posted on social media.
The video shows huge fan crowds cheering Smith, with signs praising him and even claiming his music helped someone survive cancer. Smith captioned it, “My favorite part of the tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too.”
But viewers quickly spotted glitches — distorted faces, bizarre finger placements, and weird visual artifacts. Fans accused Smith of using AI to fake the audience. 
The controversy hits amid Smith’s shaky public image after “the slap” incident. Faking concert crowds or fan stories would be a major blow to his credibility.
Tech blogger Andy Baio checked older posts and confirmed the fans and signs are real. Past tour photos and videos match the same people seen in the controversial video, meaning the footage isn’t entirely fake.
Smith’s team appears to have combined real crowd photos with AI-generated video elements, making the clip look off in places and harder to judge.
The left images come from the AI-troubled video. The right images are from previous authentic posts.
The timing is rough. YouTube recently tested a feature that enhances Shorts by unblurring and denoising videos, but it made Smith’s footage look even more synthetic.
YouTube creator liaison Rene Ritchie responded:
YouTube will soon allow creators to opt out of this feature, which has proven unpopular thus far.
Fans don’t want to give Smith the benefit of the doubt. The perception is that he posted fake fan videos, which feels inauthentic—even if the reality is more about mixed real and AI elements.
Smith may argue this is just creative editing, like autotune or Photoshop. But audiences are still suspicious of AI-generated content that seems to fake reality.
Public trust is fragile, especially for artists. Once broken, it’s tough to fix—even for the Fresh Prince.
