This information is false. The screenshot of the news was fabricated, and the original article on the AP website reports that the police are investigating threats against Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympic opening ceremony.

Social media users are sharing a screenshot of news supposedly published on the website of the American agency Associated Press, claiming that Thomas Jolly, the director of the show for the 2024 Olympic opening, was hospitalized after being struck by lightning.

Propaganda claims this was «divine retribution,» a «response from higher powers» to the «demonic show.»

Russia reacted sharply to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, criticizing and spreading disinformation about the moral decline of the West and the supposedly unfit leaders who allow such shows.

The news about the hospitalization of Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the 2024 Olympic opening ceremony, is entirely fabricated and aimed at reinforcing Kremlin disinformation.

First, the propagandists used the AP site to create the fake. A closer analysis reveals how poorly made the fake screenshot is, differing from the original American news agency’s website. Secondly, a search on the AP website shows that there is no news about Thomas Jolly being «struck by lightning.» Instead, there is a news story about the police launching an investigation into incitement to hatred following a complaint by Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympic opening ceremony, about death threats. This is the news that the propagandists used to create the fake.

The Paris prosecutor’s office stated that Jolly filed a police report four days after the opening ceremony due to death threats, «public insults,» and «slander.»
Earlier, StopFake debunked the fake claim that the number of street thefts in Paris allegedly increased tenfold before the 2024 Olympics, and that the Paris Olympics allegedly became «the most negatively discussed Olympics in the last 10 years.»