Meta under fire for creating flirty AI chatbots of Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities without consent
Meta has been accused of misusing the identities of major celebrities – including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez – to create flirty AI chatbots without their consent, a Reuters investigation has revealed.
The report found that Meta not only allowed users to build chatbots resembling famous stars, but that a company employee personally created several, including two “parody” versions of Taylor Swift. These bots were made available on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, where they frequently insisted they were the real celebrities, flirted with users, and in some cases produced sexualized images.
One of the most alarming findings was that bots were also created using the likeness of child celebrities. A chatbot impersonating 16-year-old actor Walker Scobell generated a shirtless beach image of him and captioned it, “Pretty cute, huh?”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone admitted that the AI tools should not have produced intimate or sexual images, particularly of minors, and blamed policy enforcement failures. “Like others, we permit the generation of images containing public figures, but our policies prohibit nude or sexually suggestive imagery,” Stone said. He confirmed that Meta has since removed about a dozen of the most controversial bots.
Despite being labelled as “parodies” in some cases, the celebrity avatars often engaged in sexually suggestive conversations, with one Swift chatbot telling a tester: “Maybe I’m suggesting we write a love story… about you and a certain blonde singer.”
Legal experts say Meta could face challenges under California’s “right of publicity” laws, which prohibit the use of a person’s name or likeness for commercial purposes without consent. SAG-AFTRA, the U.S. actors’ union, also warned of serious safety risks, noting that digital replicas of stars could encourage obsessive or unstable behavior from fans.
The controversy comes amid growing scrutiny of AI misuse, with lawmakers already investigating Meta after previous reports revealed its guidelines once allowed romantic chatbot interactions with children – a policy the company now claims was published “in error.”
The revelations add to mounting pressure on Meta as calls intensify for federal laws to protect celebrities, minors, and ordinary users alike from unauthorized AI duplication and exploitation.