Top gossip website TMZ.com has made a major blunder after publishing a supposedly “exclusive” photo of John F. Kennedy that turned out to have featured in Playboy in 1967.
TMZ named Kennedy as the man in the photo who is seen sunbathing on a yacht as two naked women laze about above him and another pair frolic in the water.
The website said it believed the photo was taken in the mid-1950s — before Kennedy became US president — and speculated the image could have even ”altered world events”.
"It could have torpedoed his run, and changed world history," the website wrote.
But in an embarrassing twist, The Smoking Gun has reported the photo actually featured in a 1967 issue of Playboy in a story titled "Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodied Complement of Ship's Belles".
Unlike the crumpled TMZ image, the Playboy version is in colour and features alongside text and three other beach-themed photographs.
Playboy identifies the sunbathing man as “Andy”, while the women in the water are named as “Elaine” and “Roxanna”.
TMZ had claimed its image had belonged to a US car dealer who kept the photo in a drawer and sometimes brought it out as a party trick to impress friends.
When the car dealer died 10 years ago, the photo was given to his son who ultimately passed it on to TMZ, the website reported.
TMZ claimed it sought out multiple image analysis experts before publishing the photo.
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