In mid-July 2025, a claim spread online that "RuPaul's Drag Race" star
The claim spread in the form of an image that appeared to be a screenshot of an alleged Vanity Fair article with the headline: "Drag Race star Nicole Paige Brooks officially cast as Britney Spears in the upcoming biopic, 'The Woman In Me.'" Posts on Instagram, Facebook and X shared the screenshot.
Brooks, a fan favorite from Atlanta, Georgia, first appeared
However, the Vanity Fair article did not exist, and the creator of the image acknowledged that they made it as a joke. Thus, we rate this screenshot fake.
The image first appeared on an Instagram account called @rupaulyd on July 10, 2025, with the caption, "I know Derrick Barry is FFUUUUMMMIINNNGGG." Barry is a "Drag Race" alum known for impersonating Spears. (Brooks, by contrast, is not known for impersonating Spears.)
When yet another "Drag Race" performer, Brita Filter, commented that the Vanity Fair screenshot was a "spoof" while pointing out that the "fonts, spacing and formatting" of the screenshot did not directly match Vanity Fair's website, @rupaulyd responded with, "girl duhhhh ?? it ain't my fault media literacy is dead," thus confirming that the image was fake. (Find Snopes' tool kit for reviving media literacy here.)
(Instagram user @thebritafilter/Instagram user @rupaulyd)
While the headline was fake, the author listed as the writer of the story — Savannah Walsh — is, in fact, a real Vanity Fair reporter. A search through her stories found no evidence she published anything related to "The Woman in Me," which is also a real film in the works. Directed by Jon Chu, the biopic is based on Spears' memoir by the same name.
Snopes previously debunked a claim that singer Justin Timberlake, an ex-boyfriend of Spears', responded to cultural appropriation allegations Spears made against him in her memoir.