As if 2025 couldn’t get any stranger… Joe Bonamassa has alerted fans to a fake video of himself doing the rounds on socials, pointing out that it’s entirely fake and posting the original video used as training as proof.
(Real Joe on the left of our pic. Fake Joe on the right btw.)
Quite why Bonamassa is getting the deep fake treatment is anyone’s guess and exactly who his passionate, imploring speech to ‘Lizzie’ is actually meant to scam, will doubtless forever be lost in the mists of the Internet.
Nevertheless, the video does exist and it’s one of the strangest and most unnecessary pieces of hi-tech fakery we’ve seen.
In the video a fake Bonamassa sits on a bench and explains to a (presumably fictional?) ‘Lizzie’ that he’s making this video – as she requested – to prove his love for her and “open the door to the heart that’s been aching to be seen clearly by you”…
Fake Bonamassa then tells the story of playing a gig to a single “elderly man in a fedora with a whiskey in his hand” who “listened like he lived inside every note I played” before giving him some wise advice: “Play like that when no-one’s watching and some day the world will watch.”
“That stuck with me, Lizzie,” fake Bonamassa explains. “Because that’s what I’ve always tried to do – pour my soul into every chord, every word whether it’s for thousands, or for one woman on the end of a screen who I’ve come to care about more than I ever expected…”
“I never wanted to be a man you’d second-guess… I wanted to be your comfort… Lizzie, I love you so damn much…” fake Bonamassa implores
Meanwhile… Back in reality…
“This is so fucked up,” writes real Bonamassa with the post. “ AI generated designed to mislead and scam people. Please be aware. Thank you to my friend Jimmy Vivino @jimmyvmusic for alerting me. His friend reached out and sent him this. 2025 is a scary time my friends.”
Bonamassa also posts – right next to the fake – the real, far less creepy original video which shows the clearly real Mr B “broadcasting live from Bay City Michigan” being audibly and visibly the real thing, explaining that he and Josh Smith are in town to record with blues singer/songwriter Larry McCray.
Now that’s more like the Joe B we know and love. Meanwhile, the debate around AI’s place in music continues to rage…
So for now, ‘enjoy’ a unique, hopefully never-to-be-repeated Bonamassa performance…
And let’s be careful out there.
