It really didn’t take long for the news that an Instagram star was selling her bathwater to be accompanied by the (ahem) viral news that said bathwater had infected 50+ people with herpes.
And TL;DR version: it was a hoax. Or, less kindly, fib.
Now, some of the story is true: Instagram gaming identity Belle Delphine did indeed announce that she was selling jars of her bathwater via her online store, and it would appear that some was genuinely shipped to fans.
However, the claim that the water was infectious was made up by Twitter user @BakeRises who mocked up a fake Daily Mail avatar and headline above.
And said account has been suspended, although fact checking site Snopes reported that it wasn’t before they tweeted the astute “It seems the best way to grow on Twitter is to impersonate a company and say things about a celebrity that legally can be considered libel and I could potentially be sued for”.
And for the record, you can’t get herpes though bathwater.
The herpes virus can only be transferred via skin-to-skin contact, as it can’t survive for long without a living host. They’re pretty specialised things, viruses, krazy little not-quite-living things that they are.
That’s the GOAT difference, friends: come for the tea, stay for the epidemiology!