Russ Cook and Rishi Sunak run past Buckingham Palace (Rishi Sunak/X/PA)
A man shouted ‘well done Russ’ at the Prime Minister and ultra-runner Russ Cook
By August Graham, PA8:31 - May 08, 2024
A video of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak jogging with ultra-runner Russ Cook appears to show them being heckled by a man shouting “you f****** wanker.” It has been shared multiple times and is gathering thousands of likes on social media.
Evaluation: False
The video is real, but the audio has been edited to add the heckler’s voice.
The facts
The video is a short clip from a longer video which was shared on the Prime Minister’s account on social media platform X of him meeting Russ Cook, who ran the entire length of Africa in a 352-day challenge and is known as the “Hardest Geezer”.
In that longer video, at around 1.57 seconds, the supposed heckler’s voice cannot be heard shouting obscenities at the two men over the footage later shared by other accounts on X. Instead there is a different male voice who shouts encouraging words that sound like “well done Russ”.
Links
Post one on X (archived post and video)
Post two on X (archived post and video)
Post three on X (archived post and video)
Rishi Sunak’s post on X (archived post and video)
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