In a video posted on X, they showed the filming of the interview in which Manners posed as the former employee.

After hearing the concocted story about the photograph, Carlson said: “That was great, and really interesting, too. I didn’t expect to be as interested in it as I was because you told a really great story.”

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The interview has not yet aired on Carlson’s online show, and Manners told Deadline the pranksters had decided to reveal their trick before it reached the network’s 500,000 followers.

“We didn’t want to cause any more rumours that are not true to go out to lots and lots of people,” he said. “We just didn’t want to be too worthy about that in our video.”