Donald Trump has shared an AI-generated video parodying the fatal Yorkshire zoo tiger attack, depicting the US president wrestling with and eventually taming the wild animal.
William Chapman, a 24-year-old British man, died on Saturday after entering a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, where he was attacked by a Siberian tiger named Atai.
Video of the deadly incident has since spread across social media, prompting Mr Chapman’s family to appeal to the public to stop sharing footage of the attack.
The family’s plea came after Trump posted an AI-generated clip on his Truth Social account on Tuesday. In the digitally created video, a tiger appears to attack the president before he chases it away, tames it and befriends the animal while ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ plays in the background.
Trump shared the parody shortly after posting genuine footage of the fatal incident, alongside the message: ‘Don’t ever mess with nature! President DJT!’
In the days before he entered the tiger enclosure, Mr Chapman had posted a series of photographs and videos on social media.
One disturbing video appears to show him climbing into the pen and walking towards a lone tiger resting on a raised wooden platform. Within minutes, the animal attacked and killed him.
The footage captures Mr Chapman breathing heavily as horrified onlookers can be heard shouting, ‘Oh my God’.
AI footage parodying the Yorkshire zoo tiger attack shows Trump taming and befriending the wildcat
William Chapman, 24, died on Saturday after climbing into a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster
His Instagram account also featured a gym selfie uploaded just hours before he shared the video showing him slowly approaching the tiger.
In another image, he is seen holding a Bible and a crossbow while wearing the same clothes he had on when he entered the enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
Witnesses said Mr Chapman, who police described as vulnerable, had been dancing to music at the zoo and asked a visitor to photograph him with the tiger visible in the background.
He then started climbing into the enclosure despite a woman’s desperate efforts to restrain him, before falling about 12 feet to the ground.
As the tiger attacked, Mr Chapman reportedly screamed ‘stop’ several times and appeared to make the Makaton sign for ‘bad’. Makaton is a communication system that uses signs and symbols and is generally used by people who have difficulty communicating.
DON’T MISS: Child Actor Killed by Tiger Had Appeared Alongside Harry Potter Star
The horrifying incident unfolded only minutes before emergency services were called at 1.35pm.
In a statement issued through police on Tuesday, Mr Chapman’s family said: ‘William was a bright, warm and engaging young man whom his family dearly loved – and William loved them back.
‘Sadly, William suffered from significant mental illness over a number of years and was consequently prescribed strong medication.
The scene at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday
‘It will be for the coroner to decide what part this played in his death. We would ask everybody to respect that process.’
‘The family are utterly devastated by their loss and are struggling to come to terms with what has happened,’ they said.
‘The publication and circulation of deeply offensive media content is causing them severe distress at an exceptionally vulnerable time. We ask people to stop doing this.
‘The family are hopeful that the relevant authorities will do their utmost to get to the bottom of why our amazing son did what he did.’
It emerged on Tuesday night that Mr Chapman was a ‘passionate’ child actor who appeared in an ITV comedy drama.
In 2009 he was in the two-part ITV comedy May Contain Nuts alongside Shirley Henderson – who is best known for playing Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films.
Mr Chapman played Alfie Chaplin, the son of Henderson’s character Alice Chaplin, who masqueraded as her 11-year-old daughter to take a school entrance exam in the acclaimed drama which also starred Darren Boyd.
He also appeared in the BBC series True Stories about the lives of historical people in 2012, when he portrayed the English physician and scientist Edward Jenner as a boy before he became the father of immunology and the pioneer of vaccination.
Mr Chapman had a further role in the ITV period drama series Breathless, which aired in 2013 and featured hospital staff secretly performing illegal abortions in the 1960s, according to a blog post written in 2014 by his mother.
But his acting work apparently largely stopped during his adolescence, and he appeared to not have had any screen work for many years before his death.
