Female Celebrities Are Significantly More Likely to Be Targets of Deepfakes

Celebrity deepfakes are increasingly on the rise. A new study found that people are far more likely to search deepfake content involving female celebrities than men. Each month, people make thousands of searches for deepfake content involving celebrities. The study found that searches for deepfaked celebrities had women at the top.

Many of the celebrities used in deepfake fraud are women

A recent study examined YouGov’s top 250 celebrities list. This list has an even split of men and women. Search analytics between May and June 2026 found that the influencer Pokimane is the celebrity most targeted by deepfake-related searches. There were an average of 13,833 searches for deepfake content involving her.

Taylor Swift comes in second with an average of 11,300 searches per month, and Scarlett Johansson comes in third with 8,750 searches. The other women in the top 10 are Ariana Grande, Margot Robbie, Anne Hathaway, Charli D’Amelio, Jennifer Lawrence, Lil Tay, and Kim Kardashian. The first man, Tom Cruise, is at number 19.

“The most striking part of this data isn’t the numbers — it’s that a list which began with an equal split of men and women produced a top 10 that’s entirely female, with the first man appearing only at 19th,” said Lior Pozin, the CEO of CreateUGC. “That gap tells us deepfake abuse isn’t evenly distributed; it disproportionately targets women, and increasingly influencers, whose audiences are conditioned to trust a familiar face. 

Interestingly, the study also found that influencers ranked higher than some major celebrities.

“Women are far more likely to be affected by the use of deepfake content with influencers being used even more than some of the biggest names in Hollywood such as Taylor Swift and Margot Robbie. It goes to show how quickly social media users will trust an influencer.”

While scammers can use deepfakes in fraud, it does appear that people are actively searching it as content.