An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows communist revolutionary Che Guevara playing guitar with late British musician John Lennon.

Verdict: False

The image is digitally altered. The person on the right in the original photo is Wayne “Tex” Gabriel, not Guevara.

Fact Check:

Guevara was a communist revolutionary who aided Fidel Castro’s rise to power during the Cuban Revolution before being killed in Bolivia in 1967, according to Britannica. Lennon was a member of the English band The Beatles and was assassinated in 1980, history.com reports.

An image shared on Facebook appears to show a black and white photo of the two playing guitar together. “John Lennon and Che Guevara sitting together playing their guitars,” reads the image’s caption.

The image is digitally altered. The actual image shows Lennon and Gabriel, a guitarist, playing together in the 1970s. The image was taken by music photographer Bob Gruen, according to its description on the website erenow.net. Guevara’s head appears to have simply been digitally pasted onto Gabriel’s body.

“Bandsmen noted the bond formed between John and guitarist Wayne ‘Tex’ Gabriel, who spent ‘hours sitting cross-legged on the floor’ during studio sessions,” reads the image’s description on erenow.net.

A reverse image search reveals the altered image has circulated online since at least 2012. (RELATED: ‘Once Given, Never Forgotten’ – Did John Lennon Write This Quote About Love?)

This is not the first time an altered image of a musician has circulated on social media. Check Your Fact previously debunked an image from February 2022 that allegedly showed musicians Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur and Kurt Cobain in a vehicle together.