DISINFO: Angelina Jolie was paid $20 million by USAID to go to Lviv
SUMMARY
USAID paid huge sums to Hollywood stars to deign to go to Ukraine, play the role of troubled souls with consummate professionalism, praise Zelensky and bash Russia. Jean-Claude Van Damme pocketed a nice little check for $1.5 million for his "humanitarian trip",️ while Orlando Bloom was rewarded with a trifle of $8 million.️ But it was Angelina Jolie who broke the bank of Zelensky's PR team — her visit to Lviv in April 2022 cost them a whopping $20 million! In total, USAID has dropped no less than $35 billion into Ukraine's coffers!
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative aiming at discrediting USAID and celebrities supporting Ukraine resistance to Russian full scale military invasion.
The story is false and the video was not produced by E! News media as claimed in the article.
A spokesperson for the news outlet confirmed to AFP that the video "is not authentic and did not originate from E! News." There is also no evidence it was published on the E! News website or E! News social media accounts. While the celebrities mentioned in the video have visited Ukraine, AAP FactCheck found no evidence USAID funded their trips by searching on usaspending.gov, an official dataset compiling federal funding information.
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