In September 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that the online clothing retailer Shein used a picture of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, in a summer clothes ad.
Mangione has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, awaiting trial since police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, arrested him in December 2024.
The pop culture news outlet PopCrave's posting of the alleged ad on X had more than 8 million views at the time of this writing. The outlet captioned the alleged ad, "Shein's website appears to use Luigi Mangione's face to model a spring/summer shirt."
The claim about Shein using Mangione's likeness in an ad also appeared on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived), Bluesky (archived) and TikTok (archived).
Shein did use the photo seen in online claims to advertise a men's shirt in September 2025, according to TMZ and an archived page listing. That photo bore strong similarities to authentic pictures of Mangione from a court appearance in February 2025 according to online facial comparison software.
However, it was unclear whether the photo was authentic, meaning not created or edited using artificial intelligence (AI). A Shein spokesperson told Snopes it got the photo from a third-party vendor but did not comment on whether that vendor created or edited it using AI. Mangione had been in custody for more than eight months at the time of this writing, meaning it was unlikely he had undertaken modeling work during that time. Given the above, we rate this claim a mixture of true and undetermined elements.
We reached out to Mangione's legal team to ask if the photo was authentic, meaning not created or edited using AI, and await a response.
A Shein spokesperson said in an emailed statement:
The image in question was provided by a third-party vendor and was removed immediately upon discovery. We have stringent standards for all listings on our platform. We are conducting a thorough investigation, strengthening our monitoring processes, and will take appropriate action against the vendor in line with our policies.
Shein did not identify the third-party vendor that provided the photo.
Online facial comparison sites found a high degree of similarity between a photo of Mangione during a February 2025 court appearance from the reputable picture agency Getty Images and the photo from Shein's ad.
Profacefinder.com and facecomparison.toolpie.com found a 73.3% and 92% similarity between the two photos respectively. BBC Verify, the BBC's fact checking and verification service, found a 99% similarity between Shein's ad and court photos of Mangione using Amazon Rekognition, a paid service.
Additionally, online AI detectors Sightengine and Hive Moderation both found that Shein's image was 99% likely to have been generated by AI.
Mangione has been at the center of a number of rumors since his arrest in December 2024. Snopes previously debunked an image allegedly showing Mangione in a Sailor Moon costume and investigated claims that female fans showed up at the 27-year-old's court appearance.