Emmanuel Macron might have thought he'd gotten away with downplaying being seemingly bopped in the face by his other half, but then a lip reader came along.
Footage of the President of France, 47, apparently being shoved by his wife Brigitte as they disembarked a plane in Hanoi, Vietnam, went viral earlier this week.
The Élysée initially tried to dismiss the clip, as local media reported that the official residence of the French president claimed that the video could have been AI-generated.
But Macron's team were forced to perform a dramatic U-turn on this stance a short time later - especially after body language experts and lip readers started sharing their assessments of the situation.
Advert
The world leader himself also spoke out to address his wife getting handsy with him on Monday (26 May) in front of a crowd of cameras.
"There’s a video showing me joking and teasing my wife and somehow that becomes a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe, with people even coming up with theories to explain it," Macron said.
"The videos are all real, and yes, sometimes people tamper with them, but people are attributing all kinds of nonsense to them."
He also admitted he and Brigitte had been 'squabbling, or rather joking', while adding that he had been 'taken by surprise'.
Advert
If you ask a lip reading expert what was going on with the pair though, you will likely get a very different answer.
One claimed that they saw Brigitte tell her husband to 'stay away' and branded him a 'loser', while the French president supposedly responded: "Let's try, please."
A body language expert has backed this theory up too, challenging the suggestion that this was merely a 'playful' exchange between the couple.
Judi James said: "Pushing your partner in the face with your hand so hard their head reels to the side and they need to put a hand out to keep balance, especially with what looks like an extra ‘shove’ at the end of the contact, should not be normalised by calling it ‘fun’ just to save political face."
Advert
If Macron really is trying to save face, he's giving it more than a good go - as he appeared to mock 'shove-gate' while departing the presidential plane with his wife in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Wednesday (28 May).
As he and Brigitte assumed almost identical positions in the aircraft as they did after landing in Vietnam, he stuck his hand out of the open doors to give the waiting press a wave.
Macron was then seen laughing as he waited for his wife, who is 25 years his senior, to take hold of his arm to descend the steps - an offering which she had refused on Monday after the alleged collision with her fella's face.
Sources said the couple's united front was deliberately staged to take the mickey out of the media frenzy which unfolded earlier this week, the Telegraph reported.
Advert
What do you reckon?
LADbible Group has contacted Emmanuel Macron for comment regarding the lip reader and body language expert's claims.
Topics: World News, Politics, Viral
Olivia Burke