Rumours that a 76 old woman was kicked out of KFC because she was breastfeeding her 42 year old son are spreading across the Internet.
The couple, identified as Linda and Michael Berrety (allegedly pictured above), were apparently ejecting from fast food restaurant after complaints from customers. The story has been published [verbatim] on a number of sites across the Internet and reads in part –
“What in God’s name was that?” claims Ali Belfouz, a customer who witnessed the whole scene. “I have nothing against breastfeeding, but that was pure nonsense. I felt like if I was watching some fetish type of porno. You have to be insane to breastfeed your child at that age. They should of got arrested for gross indecency rather then getting expelled.”
As many of our eagle eyed and perhaps more skeptical readers may have suspected, the story is fake, but it has still fooled many media outlets.
The clues and signs are all there, as is common with these fake “interest” stories. Firstly the story fails to mention the location of where the incident takes places, instead claiming it was a KFC store, implying it was in US state Mississippi. If the story were true, there would be no need to mention the location of the store where the incident occurred.
Secondly, the nature of the websites where this story turns up is also suspect. One of the main instances of the tale was a website called NewsWatch28.com, a lesser known fake news website that publishes many nonsense stories including “Aquarium employee fired for sleeping with a walrus”. Its disclaimer reads [emphasis ours] –
Shocking news and stories, celebrity news and gossip. Whether currently occurring, interesting, controversial, abnormal, thought provoking or satirical, we only wish to inform and entertain with the content we publish.
Other than that it has turned up on many low quality “news” aggregator sites and webpages more concerned with attracting Facebook likes than publishing quality content. Various media outlets including radio stations have picked up on the story, though most have apparently merely picked it up directly from the aforementioned low quality websites and most have retracted the story since.
Sponsored Content. Continued below...
Additionally, the couple identified as Linda and Michael Berrety on the original NewsWatch28.com article (pictured at the top of this article) have nothing to do with such an absurd story and are in fact pictured for a UK Channel 5 documentary on couples with large age gaps. Also the photo purportedly showing KFC spokesperson Jocelyn Binoy actually shows Juliet Bynoe-Sutherland, the Director of the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS.
There are no legitimate sources for this story, and despite the number of sites republishing the story without fact checking, it remains completely false.