Fact Check: Did Time give Donald Trump horns?
Times-Union readers want to know:
An email says that Time deliberately put Donald Trump in such a position on its “Person of the Year” cover so it would look like he had horns. Can anyone prove that?
Time put out its annual “Person of the Year” issue on Dec. 7, with an image of Donald Trump, inciting social media users to claim that the magazine had intentionally given the President-elect “devil horns.”
That’s because the two black triangles under the red M of the TIME logo stick out from the top of Trump’s head. But the “devil horns” are not unusual, Snopes.com found in its research — several people have received the same horns from the Time logo, including Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Pope Francis, Pope Benedict and George W. Bush. All have been situated on the cover with their heads under the M of the logo. Some of the “horns” are more prominent than others, but those on Trump, Lincoln and Jesus seem especially prominent.
Time addressed the appearance of “devil horns” on their magazine covers in March 2015, shortly after a picture of Hillary Clinton with the same “symbol” behind her head went viral. The magazine listed dozens of times that a similar image had previously appeared on its covers, and said that any resemblance to horns was completely inadvertent:
“Given the shape of the letter ‘m’ in the magazine’s name and its location on the cover, many other subjects in the past have also appeared to sprout extra features. It’s happened to Hillary Clinton at least twice. It’s happened to Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, too.
“Here’s everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Pope Francis to Jesus to Darth Vader who has received the rough end of TIME’s ‘horns.’ Any resemblance to cats, bats or devil horns is entirely coincidental.”
The magazine updated its denial on Dec. 7, adding Trump to the list of people who have incidentally received “devil horns” on its magazine cover.
You can check out the magazine’s slideshow of “horned” covers at ti.me/2h1p61O.