Days after, the former Republican presidential nominee Nikki Haley was pictured signing off on Israeli artillery shells, with the message “Finish them” intended for Gaza, a similar old photo of Chris Evans resurfaced online, inciting a heated debate among fans.

This week's viral photo on social media showed the Captain America star seemingly autographing a missile. Akin to Haley's picture drawing heavy fire, the Marvel hero eventually got embroiled in a war of words against the Internet.

The eight-year-old image provoked even fans of the generally loved Hollywood actor to go up against him as they accused him of signing what appeared to be an Israeli bomb. As the virtual contention reached Evans' ears, he turned to his Instagram Story on Thursday, breaking silence on the alleged claims made against him.

Chris Evans offers ‘clarification’ about the ‘misconception' surrounding his years-old picture

“There's a lot of misinformation surrounding this picture. Some clarification: This image was taken during a USO tour in 2016,” Chris wrote on Instagram. Further divulging that he accompanied a group of actors, athletes and musicians “to show appreciation for our service members,” he asserted that the object he appears to be signing in the viral photo “is not a bomb, or a missile, or a weapon of any kind.”

This isn't the first time this particular picture roused a virtual wrangling. Evans' viral image previously became the talk of the virtual town when an Israeli airstrike reportedly ravaged the shelters set up in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, killing dozens of people on May 26, primarily women and children, according to the Associated Press.

Debunking the accusations against himself, Evans stated the supposed “bomb” in this case was actually an “inert object used for training or display purposes only.” Along with his online clarification against the fiery misconception, he also embedded a screenshot of a February 2024 Agence France-Presse article proving his claims. “you can read the quote from the Air Force in the next story,” he added.

The AFP ‘Fact Check’ article titled “ Photo of ‘Captain America’ star misrepresented amid Gaza conflict” affirms that the internet speculations about him are false. It further states that the US military captured the snap of the actor as he and other stars visited them in Turkey in December 2016 for a holiday tour sponsored by the United Service Organisations

The Director of communications for the USO, Jennifer Passey, told AFP that the picture of Evans holding an unidentified weapon was unrelated to Israel's offensive on Gaza. “I can verify this is a photo from our 2016 USO Holiday Tour and was taken by a DoD photographer at that time,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Additionally, an Air Force spokesperson affirmed that the “weapon” in the infamous Chris Evans photo was an “inert training aid," rendering it useless for the actual battlefield. “The object Chris Evans is signing in the USO tour photo from 2016 is an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) inert training aid… The object is meant to model an artillery shell and is for display and training purposes only,” they told AFP.

Chris Evans controversy continues to blow up

However, his efforts didn't quite quell online fury as he'd hoped. Many continued to speak up against him, calling him out for signing an object associated with traumatic images of a violent political reality. Moreover, some even focused on how, despite debunking the picture's truth, he still maintained his silence on the Palestinian cause.

“No one gives a f*ck if it's a fake training bomb; the point is military propaganda isn't cute,” someone wrote on X/Twitter. Another user tweeted, “Chris Evans taking to insta after being utterly silent for 8 months just to post to his stories about how it wasn't an actual bomb he was signing, just a training device, but can't even share that shi**y AI Rafah post everyone else has is just.....yeah. Steve Rogers would never.”

A third wrote, “Ohhhh, sure thing, Chris Evans. It’s perfectly all right for you to sign something that merely REPRESENTS the bombs being dropped by our military on human beings. And it’s just fine for you to post about this, but not any info or donation links about Palestine.”

Amid the Israel-Hamas unrest, Chris Evans' “bomb” picture again gained traction in May despite being an old snap, as Nikki Haley's picture while touring Israel's northern border with Lebanon went viral.

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