The artificial intelligence-generated image of Taylor Swift supporting Donald Trump, which the singer said inspired her to endorse Kamala Harris for president this week, came from an unexpected source.

The image, which sparked controversy in August after it was shared by the former president on Truth Social, originally circulated with the text “Taylor wants you to vote for Joe Biden” and was posted in December 2023 in a pro-Biden Facebook group with just 8,000 members. This post was viewed by NBC News. A reverse image search conducted by NBC News found no previous instances of the image being posted online.

After the pro-Biden image featuring the AI-generated Swift was first posted on Facebook, it began circulating on the pro-Biden internet, particularly among the then-candidate’s Gen X and baby boomer supporters. The Facebook group where it was originally posted is primarily a place where Democrats share memes and information in support of Biden and against Trump.

The image also made its way to X and Instagram’s messaging platform Threads. SE Hinton, author of The Outsiders, shared it on X in December. It was posted to a liberal subreddit the same month.

“I’m a Boomer for Biden,” read the caption of an X-post in January.

The image’s creator, a Democrat, asked NBC News to keep his identity secret to avoid backlash. Inspired by Swift’s support for Biden in 2020, he said he used a generative AI platform to create an image from the text prompt “Taylor Swift as Uncle Sam” and then used Photoshop to overlay text on top.

On August 17, about nine months after the pro-Biden text was posted, a pro-Trump X account with over 340,000 followers posted an edited version with the text: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” The X account did not respond to a request for comment on whether it had edited the image itself or where it came from. The next day, Trump posted a screenshot of the X post on his Truth Social account with the caption “I accept!”

“I woke up one morning and got a text from someone who sent me a picture of the altered version and asked, ‘Was that you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s an altered version of my original,'” the person who created the AI ​​image of Swift’s support for Biden said in a phone interview with NBC News. “I didn’t think much of it until I sat down and watched the news. From there, it went crazy, people were saying Taylor might sue him, and I thought, ‘Holy shit, what have I done?'”

On Tuesday, after the presidential debate between Trump and Harris, Swift posted a statement of support for Harris on Instagram. In the caption, she cited the AI-generated image posted by Trump as one of the reasons she wanted to make her stance public.

“I recently became aware that a message was posted on his website in which ‘I’ falsely endorsed Donald Trump’s candidacy for president. This really heightened my fears about AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift wrote. “It made me realize that as a voter, I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election. The easiest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

Swift included a link to the official voter registration website in her Instagram story announcing her support. In the next 24 hours, more than 400,000 people clicked on the link in her account.

“I agree with Taylor that AI, when used by bad guys, can be a threat to democracy,” said the creator of the AI ​​images. “If this leads to stricter regulations, I will not only be happy to comply, but also be happy that it makes the world a safer place.”

The artist and creator of the AI ​​images said he initially experimented with AI to keep up with technological advances that he saw as a threat to his career, and realized it could be a useful way to create political satire.

In his public Facebook group, he posts content in support of Democrats, starting with Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 and now supporting Harris’ presidential campaign.

“I didn’t think it would turn out like this,” he said. “The intention was to bolster support for Joe Biden because his communications were poor and his poll numbers were low and Trump was a looming threat and I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”