If you thought face planting at your Year 12 Graduation in front of your crush was mortifying, the years of embarrassment you’ve lived through since then will simply fade away after you witness an adult man farting on live TV during a serious news report.
US politician Eric Swalwell appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with news reporter Chris Matthews this week where (it sounded like) he let one rip while sharing his thoughts on President Trump’s impeachment hearings.
After watching the clip a couple of hundred times, the Internet (and myself included) is quite certain that is the unmistakable sound of a loud, long fart – but the news reporters over at MSNBC aren’t so sure.
After Twitter went wild over #fartgate, Hardball’s undoubtedly stressed social media intern rushed to the platform to set the record straight. “Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists – it was the #harball mug scraping across the desk. Get yours today and let’s get back to the news!”
Even Swalwell himself has washed his hands clean of the fart-roversy. Andy Baird, a reporter for Buzzfeed News texted the politician to ask him the tough question of “who dealt it?” to which he responded, “It was not me!!!”
After denying that he ever even heard the fart, he did admit “it’s funny tho.”
It’s quite clear that it was not the sound of a “mug scraping across the desk,” so the real question here is: if it wasn’t Swalwell, or the mug, whodunnit?
Was it Hardball news reporter Chris Matthews? Was it a cameraman with flatulence? Was it the nervous social media intern?
Perhaps we’ll never know, but at least we can all feel better about our embarrassing moments – unless, of course, they involve a live TV fart.