Leaderboard ad

Passionfruit ads

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Man sues 'ugly' wife for 'ugly' children: hoax

You've probably read the story by now. Man sues 'ugly' wife for producing 'ugly' babies. You've wondered about it authenticity. The audacity. The accuracy.

The story is accompanied by this picture:



Guess what, guys?

It's a beat up.

Here's what urban myth debunker site Snopes has to say:

This item has now been circulating on the Internet for the better part of a decade, periodically resurfacing when some news outlet unaware of its background picks it up and runs it as a current and true news story. Recent outbreaks of this tale typically reference "children" rather than a single daughter and are accompanied by a purported photograph of the family in question, comprising three children: 

And here's an example of a version of the story:

"A Chinese man divorced and then sued his ex-wife for giving birth to what he called an extremely ugly baby girl, the Irish Times reported. 

Initially, Jian Feng accused his wife of infidelity, so sure that he could never father an unattractive child. 

When a DNA test proved that the baby was his, Feng's wife came clean on a little secret — before they met, she had undergone about $100,000 worth of cosmetic surgery in South Korea. 

Feng sued his ex-wife on the grounds of false pretenses, for not telling him about the plastic surgery and duping him into thinking she was beautiful, The Huffington Post reported. 

The kicker? He won. A judge agreed with Feng's argument and ordered his ex-wife to fork over $120,000. 

"I married my wife out of love, but as soon as we had our first daughter, we began having marital issues," he told the Irish Times. "Our daughter was incredibly ugly, to the point where it horrified me.""

Continues Snopes:

Clearly this photograph has nothing to do with the story to which it is now attached, as the Fengs supposedly divorced after the birth of their first child, a daughter, but this family portrait includes three children, the eldest of which is a boy. Indeed, this image actually originated with an advertisement for a Taiwanese plastic surgery center:
What do you think of this picture? A handsome father and pretty mother surrounded by three children who very much resemble each other all smiling in front of the camera — it looks like a happy picture of the perfect family, doesn’t it? But wait, is there something about this family that doesn’t quite look right?

Well, this picture is an ad for a plastic surgery center in Taiwan, and you can see that the children in the picture don't look like their parents at all. The ad features the line, "The only thing you have to worry you about after plastic surgery is the explaining you'll have to do to your children."
So, is any aspect of this story true?

According to Snopes, "Probably not, as it apparently originated as a single-source item printed in a Chinese newspaper (the Heilongjiang Morning Post) known for publishing urban-legend like tales without verification, such as its recent fictitious story about a man who arranged to meet his online girlfriend for their first "real" date only to discover that she was his son's wife:

The Heilongjiang Morning Post apologised for publishing a false story without verifying the facts. 

The newspaper published the story "Man's online date is daughter-in-law," saying that a 57-year-old man in Muleng, Heilongjiang province, asked his online girlfriend out for a date only to find out that she was his own daughter-in-law. 

The story became a web hit after it was published. 

The newspaper published an apology, saying that the police of Muleng had confirmed that the story was false and was fabricated by Wei Hongji, a reporter with Muleng Television. 

The newspaper said it had asked Wei to help provide photos but did not verify the facts any further.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/uglybaby.asp#ogC475kyyOr88iVx.99

You guys... don't believe everything you read. Especially on the ol' inter-webs. Stories can be... made up. I know, I know...

No comments:

Post a Comment