An image shared widely on Facebook claims the actor and martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme said the following: “After I converted to Islam, I did not get any job offer from directors…But this is not important. I believe that I got the right role in the Cosmos test. I have never been regretful even for once, because I believe in Allah.”
We could find no evidence that he ever said this. Online searches for the whole alleged quote and parts of it only surface other posts making the same claim.
We often see quotes wrongly attributed to celebrities, and other prominent figures like politicians, as part of our work fact checking online misinformation.
The caption of the Facebook post says: “Jean Claude Van Damme, says: ‘Prophet Muhammad, (peace be upon him) knew what is good for the people..’ But is he Muslim?”
This quote is closer to something we know he did say. It appears to come from an interview he did with the Egyptian broadcaster MBC Masr in 2016.
In it, when talking about eating healthily, he said: “Vegetable, hummus, all good Arabic food, Middle East, like in the old time. Like in the Muslim—look at the Muslim. Bread, almond, apple. Go, read, read, you discover the Muslim, lots of good thing. Very smart Prophet Muhammad. He knew what’s good for the future, for the body. So look at that.”
There is also no relevant mention of Islam or being a Muslim when we searched Mr Van Damme’s official Facebook page, bar this interview.
We contacted the actor’s representative in the UK for comment but did not receive a response.
Picture courtesy of Michaël Bemelmans.
