A rumor that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., after poking his eye with a mascara brush circulated online in late 2025. For example, a Facebook page titled Gavin Newsom 2028 shared the story on Oct. 29, 2025 (archived):
(Gavin Newsom 2028 Facebook page)
Snopes readers wrote in asking whether the claim was true. Some commenters on social media posts sharing the claim seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, there was no evidence that Hegseth had sought medical treatment after poking his eye with a mascara brush.
Rather, the rumor was a satirical news article written by the comedian Andy Borowitz. His Facebook page and Substack blog, The Borowitz Report, is dedicated to posting fictional, satirical news stories. The Borowitz Report’s about page begins:
Hello!
If you’re meeting me for the first time, I’m Andy Borowitz, a writer and comedian. I live in New Hampshire with my wife, daughter, and dog, a goldendoodle named Cookie. I’m not posting a photo of Cookie because if I did you’d want to subscribe to his newsletter instead of mine.
I’ve been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development.
According to CBS News, Hegseth ordered a room in the Pentagon next to the press briefing room to be fitted as a makeup studio in April 2025.
Snopes has addressed similar satirical articles written by Borowitz in the past, including the assertion that U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to arrest 67,000 NFL fans who booed him and a rumor that the U.S. Navy had struck a yacht that belonged to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas off the coast of Venezuela.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
