{"id":216603,"date":"2025-06-26T18:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T18:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/216603\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T18:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T18:59:09","slug":"esther-rantzens-daughter-blasts-repulsive-fake-pics-made-by-trolls-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/216603\/","title":{"rendered":"Esther Rantzen\u2019s daughter blasts \u2018repulsive\u2019 fake pics made by trolls | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dame Esther Rantzen\u2019s<\/a> family have released photos of the star celebrating her 85th birthday \u2014 after vile trolls spread \u201crepulsive\u201d fake images made with artificial intelligence. The Childline founder has not been seen in public for two years as she privately battles terminal lung cancer<\/a>. But her daughter, broadcaster Rebecca Wilcox, said she had consented to having real images released to counter the \u201cabhorrent\u201d misinformation being spread online.<\/p>\n

A number of false photographs posted on social media showed an emaciated woman resembling Dame Esther lying in a hospital bed, seemingly close to death. Rebecca, 45, said: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want people to think her cancer is this awful, or to create fear for other people who may be in the same situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s eating pavlova and celebrating her birthday with her family. She\u2019s not got the energy she used to, but she\u2019s certainly not on her death bed with a drip or in a coma.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow dare you suggest that? Think about her grandchildren coming across that and not knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One fake image showed an anguished woman in a hospital bed, receiving oxygen through a nasal cannula with a drip beside her. Another that more closely resembled Dame Esther claimed to show the star lying in a hospital bed with a nurse watching over her.<\/p>\n

Appearing on BBC<\/a> One\u2019s Morning Live on Thursday, Rebecca contrasted the images with real photos of her mother beaming in a yellow dress and blazer as she celebrated her 85th birthday on Sunday.<\/p>\n

One photo showed Rebecca holding a pavlova beside her mum, while another captured the veteran broadcaster wearing a straw hat as she took a stroll around her garden in May.<\/p>\n

Dame Esther has spoken to the media occasionally through radio or audio appearances, particularly while supporting efforts to legalise assisted dying. But her family have closely guarded her privacy, releasing very few images and declining to share details of her treatment.<\/p>\n

Seeing the \u201crepugnant, repulsive, abhorrent\u201d fake images online felt like an \u201cexposure and an invasion\u201d, Rebecca said.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cIt\u2019s a horrible reason to break this really careful privacy, we have been so guarded of her information and her image. It\u2019s not that she looks any different, she just wants to feel private and safe \u2014 that\u2019s why she\u2019s not been in the public eye visually.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone with a terminal diagnosis or who knows someone with one would know that you just need a little bit of privacy. You want to feel comfortable and part of being comfortable is not being exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca, who regularly appears on the programme as a consumer champion, told Morning Live hosts Gethin Jones and Kimberley Walsh that her mum \u201clooks incredible\u201d despite her health battle.<\/p>\n

She said she had warned her brother, Joshua Wilcox, to \u201ctell his kids that these pictures are out there and they\u2019re not real, that\u2019s not what she looks like\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some AI image generation platforms allow users to upload photos of real people so the technology can learn their likeness and create fake ones.<\/p>\n

Dame Esther\u2019s experience is part of a much wider problem of fake images and misinformation circulating online, Rebecca added.<\/p>\n

She urged the people behind the images to stop and \u201cthink about the fact that the people at the centre of these stories are alive and have families \u2014 and are real\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all sorts of things going on with this diagnosis, I don\u2019t want mum to have to think about this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want her friends, who haven\u2019t seen her in the flesh for months or even years because she\u2019s so secluded now, to think that\u2019s what she looks like because that\u2019s horrible for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morning Live\u2019s scam and crime expert, Rav Wilding, pointed out a number of details in the images that showed they were fake.<\/p>\n

These included numbers that appeared to have been artificially added to the IV drip bag in one image, and a button in the wrong place on a machine. Rav said: \u201cThat\u2019s because AI struggles with the finer details within an image it\u2019s creating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rav also highlighted how the bed sheet in the same image appeared to blend into the wall. He added: \u201cIt\u2019s worth looking in the background \u2014 not just the focus on where your attention would ordinarily be drawn, the subject \u2014 but look around there to see these subtle clues where AI is still struggling to create those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing the proliferation of online misinformation, Rav said a recent report suggested 52% of people primarily get their news from social media.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cSo most people are going to believe what they see as being correct and there is so much misinformation out there. Some of the fake images that we\u2019ve found are not all illegal and not all going out to try and scam someone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of things out there that are not to be trusted online. It\u2019s really just a reminder \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter what you see pop up, you need to do some checks to make sure it is something that you can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other examples of deceptive images made with AI include posters for nonexistent sequels to popular films, and fake photos used to sell cheap products.<\/p>\n

Rav urged people to act if they suspect an image is fake. He said: \u201cWe need to report these things to get them taken down. Every social media site will have its own reporting platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebecca said she had reported the image of her mother \u201cthe moment I saw it\u201d. She added: \u201cI\u2019ve not heard anything and they haven\u2019t been taken down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel for everybody else that\u2019s on the website too. There are so many other people this has happened to. We just need to report every single one.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not only celebrities who have been targeted. Earlier this year, an expert warned that artificial intelligence was being used to create \u201cAI revenge porn\u201d at an average cost of 27p per image.<\/p>\n

Dr Elissa Redmiles, assistant professor at Georgetown University in the US, said this type of image-based abuse was rising, with commercial ecosystems facilitating the process \u2014 from advertising to payment platforms.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Morning Live is made by BBC<\/a> Studios Entertainment. Watch weekdays from 9.30am on BBC<\/a> One and BBC<\/a> iPlayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dame Esther Rantzen\u2019s family have released photos of the star celebrating her 85th birthday \u2014 after vile trolls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1942,2935,77,2934,85884,85885,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-216603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-assisted-dying","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-esther-rantzen","12":"tag-fake-images","13":"tag-online-misinformation","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114751207088889538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}