On April 30, 2025, a viral post on Facebook with over 150,000 likes claimed that the Hall of Fame-inducted former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning bought a minivan for a family whose mother walked her son 2 miles to football practice every day because they did not have a car. Snopes readers searched the site wondering if the story, which did not cite any source for its information, was true.
Snopes found that the story was made-up.
If the story about Manning buying the family a minivan was true, reputable media outlets or social media accounts directly linked with Manning would have documented the event. However, that had not happened, meaning either Manning had kept the gift incredibly quiet or the story was fake. The image featured alongside the post confirmed it was the second of those two options.
A Google reverse-image search of the picture, which supposedly showed Manning handing an envelope labeled "Angela" to the mom with the minivan in the background, indicated the image existed only on social media accounts not connected with Manning. More importantly, the unnatural lighting and background blur of the image strongly suggested that it was generated by an AI tool like Midjourney, confirming that the story as presented in the post was not real.
In short, the claim appeared to be made up from whole cloth for the purpose of gaining clicks, or views, online. The page of the user who made the viral post featured several other stories about Manning supposedly doing good in the world. Many, but not all of those posts, also featured what appeared to be AI-generated images.