Kate Garraway became aware of AI boyfriend images after people congratulated her
By Lauren Del Fabbro, Press Association Entertainment Reporter
Broadcaster Kate Garraway has said she only became aware of fake AI-generated images of her and a new “boyfriend” after people came up to congratulate her.
The TV presenter, who recently appeared on the spin-off series of The Traitors, revealed how fake images of her and a fake partner began to appear online nearly a year ago, just after the death of her husband, former lobbyist and political adviser Derek Draper, with matters getting worse after it began implicating her children.
It comes after social media platform X announced that it has imposed restrictions to prevent its integrated AI chatbot Grok from generating sexualised images following calls from MPs – including Number 10.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Garraway said: “(It was) quite a raw time for myself and the children. These things started happening mainly on Facebook.
“I don’t do Facebook. There are lots of fake Facebook Kate Garraway accounts, and they were appearing almost like a celebration on these accounts of me and people.
“I only became aware when people came up to me on the street and said: ‘Oh I’m so pleased that you found love.’
“I didn’t react badly at that point because I just thought it was quite sweet that they cared and they were going through grief themselves and we had lovely conversations.
“The turning point was towards the end of last year when these AI bot sites, pretending to be news sites, were then doing whole things about how my son was destroying the relationship because of his selfishness and missing his dad, and I thought, this is awful, because his teachers could be reading this, trusting it as a news source.
Draper died at the age of 56 in January 2024 after suffering long-lasting symptoms from coronavirus.
The Smooth presenter Garraway said the images were “hurtful” to her children in a post shared on Instagram on Wednesday and has urged the public to use trusted news sites when online.
Also appearing on the breakfast programme was Welsh farmer and YouTuber, Gareth Wyn Jones, who was recently a victim of an AI-deepfake sextortion plot.
He said: “They they were quite scary and quite realistic, to be totally honest with you.
“If somebody puts you in a situation like that, it can really affect you mentally, emotionally, your relationship, your marriage, and it really, really, made me more angry and made me want to go public and help other people, because that’s what’s important.
“There’ll be other people that have had this. There’ll be other people that are suffering in silence, almost probably some people have paid these people off at some stage.
“I’m so glad that we could get this message out there, and good news with X and Grok and Elon Musk this morning, and all these things are going in the right direction.”
Regulator Ofcom launched an investigation into the AI chatbot Grok earlier this week and said on Thursday it welcomed the new restrictions on the chatbot which will apply to all users, including paid subscribers, with image editing and creation limited to premium users.
