Viral video of lion feasting in South African store, AI-generated

Claim: Facebook users share a viral video of a lion eating meat in a South African grocery store.

Verdict: Misleading! Our findings indicate that the footage originated from a TikTok page that features AI-generated content. The video was captioned and redistributed on Facebook with a misleading narrative.

Full Text

Facebook has been abuzz with the footage of a lion eating meat in a grocery store. The less-than-two-minute video, reportedly captured in South Africa, shows the lion devouring some of the meat sold in the store after scaring customers off the scene.

Explaining the situation, Reporter_Masami, one of the people who posted the video, said a CCTV camera caught the incident in the store, located “in a town bordering a nature reserve.”

Several others also shared the footage, including Simon Peter, a South African Facebook blogger. 

As of June 25, 2025, Simon’s post recorded 500 likes, 171 conflicting comments, and 17 shares. The same story has also been shared on YouTube, as seen here, here, and here.

While wild animals like lions and elephant seals have appeared in South Africa’s public spaces in the past, none have been reported to take over a shopping mall. 

The claim’s virality and sensitive nature made DUBAWA conduct this fact check.

Verification

We noticed some red flags typical of manipulated visuals in the video. In the first 40 seconds, the lion, appearing real, devoured a large piece of meat with a rough surface. In the latter part, the big chunk suddenly turned into smaller thighs resembling those of a pig, with smooth surfaces.

Between 42 and 44 seconds, the video experienced a glitch that caused objects that look like confetti, to fall off the food racks. But they disappeared before even touching the floor where the lion was feasting.

Likewise, none of the users who posted this video specified a particular store or location where the incident occurred.

DUBAWA did not find any news coverage of the occurrence, so we conducted a reverse image search. This led us to the original version of the video posted on TikTok by Ataques Feroz. This user posted the video on June 13, 2025, with a caption that read, “wild lion storms into grocery store.”

Besides not naming a specific location or mentioning South Africa as where it happened, this video was posted on the account with TikTok’s creator AI-generated label. 

Aside from the footage under verification, Ataques has posted several other AI-generated videos and images on his page. While some were easy to detect, others are hyper-realistic and require advanced analysis.

About TikTok’s AI label

As part of its gatekeeping tactics, TikTok recently implemented automatic labelling for AI-generated content (AIGC) created outside of TikTok and uploaded to its platform. 

TikTok utilises “Content Credentials” technology to attach metadata to content, identify it, and automatically label the AI-generated content. Aside from the auto-label, TikTok also allows users to specifically classify their content using the “Creator Label” if it contains AI elements.

DUBAWA found this label on Ataques’ videos, including the one under verification, as seen in the screenshot below.

TikTok described AI-generated content as “images, video, or audio that is generated or modified by artificial intelligence, such as artificial visuals, videos, or sounds that may portray realistic human likenesses or depictions created in a particular artistic style.”

TikTok stated that posting AI-generated content without a label is against its community guidelines. The platform also advised users to report such posts when they see them.

Conclusion

No lion invaded a South African food store. The viral video is AI-generated content taken from TikTok and captioned with misleading narratives.