The footage emerged online shortly after Katie Zacharia stepped up to the podium for her very first appearance in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.
WASHINGTON, DC — As newly appointed White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia navigates online ridicule following her briefing room debut, social media has been flooded with a completely unrelated video falsely claiming to show her rambling and appearing flustered during a past beauty pageant. While many users shared the clip to poke fun at the official, a handful of skeptical viewers urged others to verify its authenticity.
Claim: Viral video captures Katie Zacharia at a beauty contest
The circulating video depicts a young blonde contestant sporting a South Carolina sash as she struggles to articulate an answer regarding why a significant portion of Americans reportedly cannot locate the United States on a map.
An X (formerly Twitter) post shared the footage on October 13 along with the caption, “Please meet the new White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia.”
Accumulating millions of views across X, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, the clip duped numerous users into believing the woman in the video was indeed the newly minted press secretary.
Fact Check: The individual in the video is not Katie Zacharia
The assertion is entirely incorrect; the woman featured in the footage is not Zacharia.
A reverse image lookup reveals that the person in the video is actually Lauren Caitlin Upton, known for her infamous gaffe during the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant—an experience she later noted severely impacted her mental health. Today, she works professionally as a model and actress under the mononym Caite Upton.
Even one of the X accounts responsible for spreading the footage eventually confessed that the post was merely intended as a joke.
Furthermore, eligibility requirements for the Miss Teen USA pageant restrict contestants to ages 14 through 18. Because Zacharia was born in California in 1984, she would have been far too old to participate in the 2007 competition.
Inside Katie Zacharia’s first press briefing
The viral mix-up followed Zacharia’s debut appearance, which began with her reading an extensive list of purported administration accomplishments under President Donald Trump. The brief, high-speed session left observers with more questions than answers due to strict time constraints, minimal inquiries allowed, and scarce substantive details provided.
Spanning a mere 14 minutes, the briefing saw Zacharia field just three questions from reporters representing conservative-leaning media outlets, including Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail.
Over the course of the session, she touched upon the administration’s engagement with new media platforms, President Trump’s upcoming midterm campaign travel schedule, and the recent resignation of US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle.