Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss stormed off stage during a speaking engagement after pranksters unfurled a banner behind her that read “I crashed the economy.”
Truss was speaking in support of US presidential hopeful Donald Trump when the banner was slowly lowered onto the stage behind her. Along with the legend “I crashed the economy,” the banner also featured a sketch of a lettuce - a vegetable that somehow became synonymous with Truss’s short term in office.
The prank drew scattered laughter from the audience, but Truss herself seemed unaware of it until a man walked onstage to draw her attention to it. All this happened while the British politician was predicting Trump’s victory in the upcoming US presidential election.
“I have no idea where that came from,” the embarrassed host at the speaking tour stammered as Liz Truss walked off stage in a huff.
Take a look at the video below:
Campaign group ‘Led by Donkeys’ claimed responsibility for the prank. In posts shared on the social media platform X, the group said “We just dropped in on Liz Truss’s pro-Trump speaking tour with a remote-controlled lettuce banner. She didn’t find it funny.”
{{/usCountry}}Campaign group ‘Led by Donkeys’ claimed responsibility for the prank. In posts shared on the social media platform X, the group said “We just dropped in on Liz Truss’s pro-Trump speaking tour with a remote-controlled lettuce banner. She didn’t find it funny.”
{{/usCountry}}Truss may not have been amused by the prank, but social media certainly was. The video has racked up over 2.4 million views on X, where one person wrote: “Well that response was icy, positively iceberg.”
“This is the best thing I've seen all year. Faith in humanity restored,” another wrote.
It is not immediately clear when and where the prank occurred. Videos of the incident surfaced online early this morning.
Truss became synonymous with a lettuce after British tabloid Daily Star began a livestream of an iceberg lettuce next to a framed photograph of Liz Truss in October 2022. The tabloid wanted to see whether Truss would announced her resignation as UK PM before the vegetable wilted. Liz Truss lasted 49 days as the PM, announcing her resignation before the lettuce wilted.