“Alhamdullilah! The orphanage is now open!” The clip showed Lily Jay Hinson laughing in a crowd of cheering children, and it has since been deleted. ABC News Verify says it was not what it seemed.
Hinson, 31, is from Queensland. A former burlesque dancer known for a single called “Renovate”, she converted to Islam and built an Instagram following of 3 million people with posts about her faith and her giving. She asked those followers for donations to the Lily Jay Foundation. Videos on her page appeared to show food and aid going to children in Uganda, Nepal and Sudan.
What the ABC found
The ABC’s investigation turned up what PerthNow, quoting it, called a “trail of apparent AI-generated content” across accounts linked to the foundation. In the Uganda orphanage clip, the foundation sign on the building vanishes partway through and the children’s fingers are distorted. The window changes position between scenes.
Another clip, reportedly filmed in Gaza, shows Hinson in front of a truck with a foundation banner. The banner’s corner cuts out unnaturally over her arm, which suggested to the ABC that it had been added digitally. PerthNow noted that the flag on the truck flickered across her arm and that a spelling error appeared in the foundation’s logo.
The checks went beyond pixels. The New York Post reported that the ABC could not find a registration for the Uganda orphanage, which the law requires, nor any independent proof it exists. No government body or aid worker in Uganda it contacted had heard of it. Reporters could not geolocate the foundation’s claimed bakery in Gaza either, or find evidence it was real.
Photos of Hinson accepting a “2026 Austral-Global Excellence Award for Humanitarian Leadership” carried a ChatGPT watermark, according to the ABC. The award does not exist.
The foundation’s reply
The foundation told PerthNow on Wednesday that AI had been used in some videos. Its statement said members of its marketing team “incorporated a small number of AI-generated introductory clips featuring Lily Jay”, and that these lasted only a few seconds, serving as “opening hooks” before genuine footage of its work. It told the Post the AI material was not used to fake aid delivery.
It also said it operates under a corporate structure and is not a registered charity, though it would like to become one, and that it withholds precise GPS coordinates to protect teams in conflict zones. It maintains its projects are genuine and verified for individual supporters.
Corporate filings do not list Hinson at all. They name Christine Hinson, James Bracher and Sayed Mohsin as directors. Data cited by the ABC indicated that her personal Instagram account is run from Cyprus and the foundation’s from Kosovo. After the investigation, the foundation’s website removed its donation page, though it continues to promote its mission. The Red Crescent has warned that unverified humanitarian claims risk misdirecting vital resources.
Sources
- Popular influencer and Muslim convert used AI to create fakes of supposed charity work overseas: probe
- Humanitarian foundation set up by Aussie influencer Lily Jay Hinson admits to using AI-generated content | PerthNow
