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Texas Student Wrongly Linked to Viral Olive Garden Hoax Speaks Out

Uneven platform responses continue despite Olive Garden’s public disavowal of the claim.

Overview

  • The false story paired Megan Ashlee Davis’s real mugshot with a fabricated tale of a St. Louis waitress throwing breadsticks, first posted by the Facebook page Pure Videos.
  • Davis, a College Station student arrested for public intoxication in August, says she has never worked at Olive Garden and does not live in St. Louis.
  • Olive Garden stated the incident never happened and confirmed the woman pictured is not an employee, noting the originating page has shared similar hoaxes.
  • Copies of the hoax persist across platforms, with fact-check labels appearing on X posts while many Facebook versions remain available.
  • Davis reports harassment and AI-manipulated images using her mugshot, says she has contacted law firms, and coverage ties the spread to Meta’s April move to end U.S. third-party fact-checking.