Reporting To You

No, Tim Kaine Isn't Actually In An Open Marriage

This election just keeps getting weirder.

By Julia Reinstein

Julia Reinstein

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on October 4, 2016, at 7:18 p.m. ET

Leading up to Tuesday night's vice presidential debate, a ~shocking new scandal~ is rocking Twitter. A lot of people think Tim Kaine is in an open marriage, due to a screenshot of a tweet that's been making the rounds.

Spoiler alert: The tweet is fake.

(Duh.)The fake tweet reads, "When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn't rejecting me, she was embracing herself."It is listed as being sent on July 12, 2015, at 3:56 p.m.

A quick search shows that Kaine has no tweets posted that day.

According to Snopes, the image was first shared on Aug. 6 by Twitter user @RealScottErnst, who has shared it at least six times since.

It gained serious traction when it was posted on Prntly on Aug. 8, a site the Washington Post has described as a "pro-Trump fake news website" with "no editorial process."

Prntly describes itself on Facebook as "#1 in journalistic excellence 2015" and "America's favorite news cite [sic]."

Not to mention, the exact words from the fake tweet first appeared in a July 2015 New York Magazine article titled "What Open Marriage Taught One Man About Feminism."

(Which was not written by Tim Kaine.)

In conclusion:

Vine — vine.co

Julia Reinstein is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Contact Julia Reinstein at julia.reinstein@buzzfeed.com.

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