Oops! Newbury Weekly News falls for viral newspaper prank featuring TikTok star 'Hasbullah' in Mother’s Day supplement
The Newbury Weekly News seems to have fallen for a viral prank whereby fans of a global TikTok star send local papers and organisations photos of him disguised to be someone else.
A Mother’s Day supplement released today (March 24) mistakenly featured the 18-year-old social media star appearing to be a young child sending in a warming message to his mum.
The viral UFC superfan and vlogger Hasbullah Magomedov is said to have a genetic condition that gives him a childlike appearance from height and characteristics to his voice.
Fans of the global celebrity, who has 4.3 billion views on TikTok, have been sending in photographs of ‘mini Khabib’ to various publications and organisations in what has quickly become a viral prank.
'Best Mum Ever' is a 16-page NWN supplement dedicated to Mother’s Day messages, drawings and photos from local readers in and around West Berkshire.
In among the warming messages to mothers, grandmas and guardians, a picture of the viral UFC supporter managed to sneak its way in, disguised as a message from a young son to his mum – and yes, we accidentally published it.
Hasbullah Magomedov made his fame through creating TikTok videos and hanging out with big names in the mixed martial arts (MMA) world.
He is also known to many as friend of MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov and has been nicknamed ‘mini Khabib’.
The message, alongside a picture of Mr Magomedov read: “Happy Mother’s Day to my mummy Sandra. Me and daddy will cook for you so put your feet up. Love from us xxx”
Earlier this year, a Scottish newspaper went viral after mistakenly publishing a picture of Hasbullah in a piece about young children enjoying the snow.
The article captioned the photo of the Mr Magomedov saying: “Hasbullah, seven, had never experienced snow before last week."
Another occurrence saw Manchester City FC’s in-house media team fall for the prank on March 6.
A picture of Hasbullah was tweeted under the hashtag #citysquarelive and made it to the club's television channel, reading: “Little man's first derby today, smiles not gone away all day. Cmon blues…”
