AI-Generated Celebrity Deepfakes Drive Scam Campaigns on TikTok

Scammers are deploying AI-generated videos of celebrities including Taylor Swift and Rihanna to promote fraudulent reward programs and services on TikTok, according to research by Copyleaks. The videos manipulate real footage — typically from red carpets, podcasts, or talk shows — using AI to make celebrities appear to endorse the scams.

The visual quality of AI-generated celebrity impersonation is increasing rapidly, making user-level detection unreliable. Platform-level detection and faster takedown pipelines are the primary mitigations at scale. Users should treat any celebrity endorsement of financial or rewards programs on social media as suspect, regardless of apparent video quality or production value.