A YouTube Prankster Convinced Tucker Carlson That He Was Kate Middleton’s Photoshopper

Anyone at Fox News could have told you that there are about 787 million reasons to believe that Tucker Carlson doesn’t check his sources.

Back before YouTube and social media destroyed the definition of the word “prank,” no group of people were more picked on by tricksters than the journalists who could disseminate the most far-fetched of practical jokes to the general public. The practice of media pranking stretches back at least to the college days of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who famously tricked many of his country’s most prominent newspapers into thinking that his prestigious university would be awarding an honorary degree to Charles Lindbergh following his transatlantic flight, only for the photographers and journalists to witness a lookalike receiving the honors. Sadly, contemporary pranksters are typically far cries from the likes of Sartre as they seem to think that being a public nuisance and an all-around asshole is the same thing as playing a prank.

However, one of the biggest public nuisances and all-around assholes in America recently found himself on the receiving end of one of the better media hoaxes in recent memory when Tucker Carlson accidentally invited popular YouTube prankster Archie Manners onto his show thinking that Manners was actually a professional videographer and photo editor who worked for Duchess Kate Middleton and the British Royal Family before being fired over their latest photo fiasco. It turns out Manners and his team are much better at Photoshop than Carlson thought they were.

Along with his partner Josh Pieters, who forged Manners' Kensington Palace employment documents and the fake-original photograph for Middleton's infamously edited Mother's Day photoshoot, manners runs the popular YouTube prank channel Josh & Archie, which boasts 1.4 million followers. The pair have previously made headlines for bringing an Ed Sheeran lookalike to the KSI vs. Logan Paul II boxing match and for flying far-right U.K. political commentator Katie Hopkins to Prague to award her the "Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy," leading to an all-time great thumbnail when she accepted the “honor” in front of the award's unfortunate acronym.

Presumably, no one working at the Tucker Carlson Network knew about Manners' history of embarrassing news media's most racist a-holes when they booked him to appear on Carlson's Twitter show, taking his hilariously faked verification documents at face value – among the highlights of Pieters' forgery was the inclusion of a clause in Manners' supposed employment contract that stated that the Royal Family reserves the right to amputate one (1) of Manners' limbs should his performance in the fake position prove unsatisfactory.

Despite the comical build-up to the interview, Manners' performance on Carlson's show itself was mostly benign and believable, convincing Carlson that the infamous photo at the center of the Royals' latest media frenzy was taken at Christmastime by Middleton's uncle with a hastily Photoshopped Christmas tree. However, the segment did feature one of the most hilariously ironic phrases Carlson has ever uttered when he said of the veracity of Manners' story, “We’ve done our best to verify that your identity is what you say it is. You’re not a fake Navalny or doing a prank.”

Are we sure Carlson actually interviewed Vladmir Putin, or does Manners just have access to a killer bald cap?