---
title: "Yes, There’s a “Pee Tape” — and It’s Unclear If It’s a Deepfake"
description: "Earlier this year, a video claiming to be the legendary Trump pee tape surfaced online. It's almost certainly a fake, but it's also unclear how it was made."
date: "2019-09-26"
modified: "2019-09-26"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/pee-tape-unclear-deepfake"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
tags:
  - "deepfake"
  - "pee tape"
  - "the digest"
  - "trump"
---

# Yes, There’s a “Pee Tape” — and It’s Unclear If It’s a Deepfake

![Earlier this year, a video claiming to be the legendary Trump pee tape surfaced online. It's almost certainly a fake, but it's also unclear how it was made.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/pee-tape-unclear-deepfake.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Ashley Feinberg via Slate/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## PeeFake

There have long been rumors of a tape that shows Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, directing sex workers to urinate on each other, or possibly a mattress where predecessor Barack Obama once slept, in the presidential suite of Moscow's Ritz-Carlton hotel.

It's slowly emerging that a video claiming to be the legendary pee tape surfaced in January. In it, a shadowy Trump-like figure sits in a chair as nude women cavort on the bed. After a torturous nine months of investigation, *[Slate](<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html>)*['s ](<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html>)[Ashley Feinberg concluded](<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html>) that the tape is almost certainly a fake — leaving fascinating questions, both political and technological, about how the video was created and why.

## Exhausted Sigh

The (extremely not-safe-for-work) video has been posted and scrubbed from the internet several times since January, but as of this article's publication [you can see it here](<http://pisstape.org/>). There are numerous problems with the video — the décor in the video doesn’t match that of the hotel, for instance.

But one of the biggest remaining questions is whether the grainy video's elusive creator hired a Trump lookalike or [used deepfake technology](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/deepfake-trump-breaking-bad>) to edit his face onto someone else's body.

## Workaround

Deepfakes are [getting pretty good](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/system-easy-create-deepfakes>), but they're still not totally convincing. But it's still unclear how this video was created, because the video itself appears to be a phone recording of a screen playing the actual video — a sneaky trick that one forensics expert told *Slate* would be a clever way to make it harder to spot flaws in the clip.

With that much blur and the already inscrutable, uh, mood lighting, it's all-but-impossible to tell whether we're actually peering at Trump's face or that of an unfortunate actor.

**READ MORE:** [The Pee Tape Is Real, but It’s Fake](<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html>) \[*Slate*\]

**More on Trump:** *[Trump Tweet Accidentally Reveals Secrets About US Spy Satellites](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-tweet-secrets-spy-satellites>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)