Twitter is alive with users sharing photos of the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, and Niagara Falls, all ablaze in purple to honor Prince Rogers Nelson’s passing on Thursday morning. Prince was an inspiration to fans all over the world, and there certainly hasn’t been a dearth of tributes. But no, those places are not shining purple for Prince right now. In fact, a quick check of EarthCam shows the Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower aren’t shining purple at all.
It’s easy to understand where the confusion comes from. The Empire State Building changes colors for things like Police Memorial Week, the Super Bowl, and was recently red for Donald Trump’s primary win, and blue for Hillary Clinton’s. The purple is actually a recirculated image from August 7, 2015, in honor of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
This isn’t the first time a recycled image of the Empire State Building has made rounds on Twitter with an incorrect caption. After the Paris attacks on November 13 tweets went around that the building was lit red, white, and blue for France. It wasn’t.
Here are the photos circulating Twitter.
And this is what the Empire State Building actually looks like tonight, courtesy of Frank Koughan, Emmy Award winning producer at Frontline.
And those pictures of Niagara Falls lit up in royal purple? Those are actually legit, but it was lit up for the 90th birthday of the Queen of England, not for Prince.
If you want to see some places that actually went purple for Prince, you’ll have to look at his home state of Minnesota.
