Overview
- Shatner, 95, told followers Thursday that claims he had stage IV brain cancer and a feud with Erika Kirk were fabricated by AI.
- He posted a new photo and wrote that he is “fit as a fiddle,” after his granddaughter heard the false cancer rumor.
- The hoax traced to a Facebook page called The Beanstalk Functions Group, which used AI images and monetized links to spread the stories.
- Meta said it removed the Facebook page for policy violations, yet Shatner reports the linked articles still live on sites built with Next.js, a web framework run by Vercel.
- Shatner continues to flag the posts and warn fans to verify sources, highlighting how easy AI tools and profit incentives let realistic fakes outpace takedowns.