Greg Abbott Duped by Fake News Story Mocking Garth Brooks

Texas Governor Greg Abbott was mocked on social media after he responded to a satirical article about country music legend Garth Brooks being booed off the stage during a performance in the state.

On Sunday afternoon, the governor tweeted "Good job Texas" with the link to the article, which claimed that "patriots" had booed Brooks during his performance at the 123rd annual Texas County Jamboree in Hambriston. However, the story was completely made up and the city of Hambriston doesn't even exist in Texas. While Abbott quickly deleted the post, which was shared on his personal Twitter account with more than a million followers, Newsweek captured a screenshot before it was removed.

Brooks recently came under fire from right-wing critics over his refusal to ban Bud Light from his new bar in Nashville, Tennessee, amid mounting calls to boycott the beer brand. Bud Light first faced backlash in April over the company's partnership with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney. Over the past few months, the outcry over Bud Light's association with Mulvaney has sparked scrutiny of an escalating number of companies over their LGBTQ+ marketing campaigns.

Newsweek reached out via email to Abbott's representatives for comment.

Brooks enraged conservatives earlier this month when he told Billboard that he doesn't discriminate and "welcomes all" to his bar, Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk. He said he will serve "every brand of beer" and that his bar encourages "love and kindness while playing the greatest music in the world."

The fake article, by parody news website Dunning-Kruger-Times, shared by Abbott on Sunday accuses Brooks of loving liberals and "playing for the other side."

Dunning-Kruger-Times states on its website that all its content is "parody, satire, and tomfoolery."

"Everything on this website is fiction," the publication states directly on its website. "It is not a lie, and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined."

Despite this warning, the website has fooled social media users into sharing and replying to the fake stories as if they were credible, factual news articles.

The site appears to be named after the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding an area of knowledge or task tend to overestimate their knowledge or skill.

Abbott isn't the only prominent figure to be duped by the satirical site. Recently, a post falsely claiming that investors had pulled out of Brooks' new bar went viral on Twitter, with singer John Rich being one of several people who were assailed on Twitter for responding to the parody news.

In the now-deleted Twitter post, the Texas governor captioned the tweet, in part, with the popular GOP refrain: "Go woke. Go broke."

Despite the tweet being removed quickly, Twitter users managed to snag screenshots and mocked the governor online for not noticing certain key details of the fake piece.

"@GregAbbott_TX just accidentally posted a satire article because he wants to hate on queer Texans and Garth Brooks so bad," Texas state Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat, tweeted. "The Texas Country Jamboree doesn't exist. Hambriston, Texas is not real. And the Governor is not fit to tweet, much less govern. Happy pride!"

Christopher S. Brown, a retired TV network producer, taunted Abbott by responding to his tweet, writing that there are "plenty of real problems" the governor should focus on.

"To be clear — this didn't happen. It's a 'satire' site. Texas is burning, there are plenty of real problems to worry about without getting spun up over a lie. But @garthbrooks continues to be awesome," Brown tweeted.

Journalist Christopher Hooks called out Abbott over apparently not noticing the fake story's author, "Flagg Eagleton – Patriot."

"Greg Abbott posts a fake item from the 'Dunning Kruger Times' written by 'Flagg Eagleton – Patriot,'" he tweeted.

Update 06/26/2023 1:54 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional context.