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Why is Dave Bautista getting accused of slapping Meghan Markle?

This is really getting out of hand now.

Dave Bautista attends the "Dune: Part Two" premiere at Lincoln Center on February 25, 2024 in New York City/Meghan, Duchess of Sussex speaks onstage during the Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen panel during the 2024 SXSW Conference and Festival at Austin Convention Center on March 08, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Meghan Markle has made some powerful enemies in her time, everyone from the Beckhams to her brother-in-law, the future king of England, Prince William. We’re not sure any of the Duchess of Sussex’s other opponents are as physically powerful as Dave Bautista, though.

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But, wait, Dave Bautista has beef with Meghan Markle? Why, does she prefer John Cena or Dwayne Johnson? Is she the real reason he’s not been cast as Bane yet in the Batman movies? There’s a lot of misleading chatter out there so let’s get to the Drax-honest truth of what has transpired between the former wrestler-turned-actor and the former actress-turned-Royal.

Why are people saying Dave Bautista slapped Meghan Markle on an episode of The Tonight Show?

In short, nothing happened between Dave Bautista and Meghan Markle. Despite that, widely spurious — and easily disproven — claims are going around that the My Spy: The Eternity City actor had some kind of shocking encounter with the duchess during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The story that’s somehow even larger-than-life than Bautista himself, alleges with impunity that, during his recent appearance on the talk show, a picture of Meghan was displayed on the screen, causing Bautista to react violently, pointing his finger at the image and slamming his fist on the desk. Even taller iterations of the tale claim that Meghan actually appeared in the flesh and Bautista ordered her to “shut her mouth!” and possibly even slapped her.

Reader, this never happened.

If you don’t believe me, watch Bautista’s Tonight Show interview above for the cast-iron proof. Unless Meghan is as invisible as Drax in Infinity War, she ain’t there, either in person or in picture form. Unfortunately, this ridiculous fib is gaining steam on socials, particularly Facebook and YouTube, due to a proliferation of AI-voiced supposed news videos that make the story grander each time they tell it.

It seems enough people believed the recent viral lie that Hugh Jackman had barked at Meghan during the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere to make this one worth spreading around, too. At least the Wolverine actor and Meghan had some history, though, but as far as we’re aware she and Bautista are perfect strangers. Meghan has never even been on The Tonight Show, despite a near-miss in 2022.

They used to say don’t believe everything you read on the internet, but now it’s best not to believe everything you hear either. Someone call Bautista’s old pal, Benoit Blanc/Daniel Craig, to get to the bottom of who started this defamatory fabrication.