A man with a slight resemblance to a distraught looking model has been thrust into the limelight after the Mail Online mistook his joke on Twitter as a genuine cry of work-related remorse.
Marley Bennett, from Bristol, tweeted a picture from the back of a rolling tobacco packet warning of the dangers of impotency from smoking.
Noting the similarities between himself and the rather forlorn looking man in the picture, he said: “With the benefit of hindsight, accepting this modelling job was definitely a mistake.”
After gaining considerable traction on social media, Bennett’s feigned misfortune was compounded when the Mail Online dedicated an entire article to his tweet.
Bennett, who works for Labour MP, Kerry McCarthy, told HuffPost UK: “I can confirm that the picture on the cigarette packets is, fortunately, not me.
“Sadly I am not a male model, the tweet was a joke I made for my Twitter followers before it went viral.
“I have been telling the journalists who have asked me as much, but it seems the Daily Mail never bothered to check!”
In fairness, Bennett initially didn’t exactly dispel the confusion immediately.
And if there is a lesson to be learned from all this then it is most certainly this: