A Jealous Cheerleading Mom Created A ‘Deep Fake’ Video To Get Her Daughter’s Rival Kicked Off Of The Team
If you thought “Mean Girls” was as rough as it gets, you haven’t heard the one about a cheerleader who ended up with a mom’s target on her back. Madi Hime, a Pennsylvania high school cheerleader has become the victim of the modern age… and a mom with vengeance on the mind.
Raffaela Spone is being accused of targeting Hime with a fake video of her smoking.
According to reports, the Pennsylvania mother doctored the image of the high school cheerleader. The mom allegedly conspired to have her daughter’s rivals kicked off the school’s cheerleading squad by creating “deep fake” videos of them in compromising positions.
Madi Hime, just 17, recently told Good Morning America in a recent interview that she broke down in tears when her coach confronted her with a fake video of her vaping. The doctored video implied that not only was she smoking, but she was in violation of the team’s code of conduct.
“I went in the car and started crying and was like, ‘That’s not me in the video,’” Hines told Good Morning America on Monday. “I thought if I said it, no one would believe me because obviously, there’s proof, there’s a video – but obviously that video was manipulated.”
In addition to being confronted with the video by her coach, Hime said she was also sent photos of herself via text from a person who claimed to be a concerned parent. Shocked, Hime shared the pictures with her mother who went to the police.
“It had actually been going on for quite a while, I just didn’t know about it,” Hime’s mother told GMA. “I told her ‘I will call the police,’ because I wanted her to know that’s how much I believed her.”
Eventually, police looking into the images were able to trace the messages to Raffaela Spone, the mother of another student also accused of sending altered images to two other teammates.
Spone, 50, is now charged with cyber harassment of a child by creating images called “deep fakes.”
Robert Birch, her attorney, said his client denies the claims that she was attempting to take down her daughter’s cheerleading rivals.
“She has absolutely denied what they’re charging her with and because of the fact that this has hit the press, she has received death threats,” Birch explained. “She has had to go to the police herself, they have a report. Her life has been turned upside down.”
