A Los Angeles-based musician who went viral on TikTok for paying a drive-thru visit to McDonald’s while infected with monkeypox has revealed the entire thing was a hoax.

Duane Cali sparked a ton of backlash after sharing the clip which appeared to show him putting other people at risk, but he’s now posted this follow-up video showing how he faked the whole thing to promote his music:

After receiving backlash for visiting a McDonald’s and potentially infecting others, the up and coming artist admitted to faking monkeypox as a marketing scheme to promote his music. Is he a genius or a clout chaser? 👀 pic.twitter.com/5Hiy7XiWo4

— No Jumper (@nojumper) August 28, 2022

Duane explained:

“The song was called ‘Choose Yourself’ so I was trying to market it in a way where it displays a person choosing themselves regardless of how other people feel about it. Unfortunately, it didn’t translate that way and people just ended up getting mad at me.”

So after all that, did Duane Cali pick up enough new TikTok followers to make it worth the while?

Eh, not really. If he’d have racked up 20k followers off the whole thing then maybe I’d be sitting here blogging about what a marketing genius he is. We all remember how many social media influencer types faked having Covid in order to boost their online profiles, but as far as I can tell, Duane Cali is the first person to fake having monkeypox. So at least he’s a pioneer in that regard, if nothing else.

Anyway, we’ll do him a solid and share this track ‘Choose Yourself’ below:

For a look at the lyric Monica Lewinsky is demanding Beyoncé remove from one of her hit singles, click HERE.