Look, everybody misspeaks every so often. But here’s a real whopper for you. Fox News host Shepard Smith accidentally said yesterday that scientists are trying to “identify the model for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Mona Lisa.” A Twitter user caught it and quickly tweeted it. (Turn up your speakers; the volume is a bit faint.)
DiCaprio’s ties to the art world are well known. He’s an avid art collector, snapping up works by artists from Frank Stella to Takashi Murakami, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Pablo Picasso. And for the record, his parents settled on his name while studying a work by Leonardo at the Uffizi.
And as a new Instagram account reminds us, he’s even been caught wielding a brush once or twice.
Maybe Smith was just tired from his admirable campaign in support of Pope Francis’ advocacy for the poor and the environment. On Wednesday, on the occasion of the Pontiff’s address to a joint session of Congress, Smith called out those who are saying Francis’s message is too close to that of those on the political left.
“Caring for the marginalized and the poor—that’s now political,” he said, with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Advancing economic opportunity for all. Political? Serving as good stewards of the environment. Protecting religious minorities and promoting religious freedom globally. Welcoming and … integrating immigrants and refugees globally. And that’s political?”
But if DiCaprio did paint La Gioconda, hey, maybe the actor can finally tell us who posed for Leonardo, and what’s behind her mysterious smile.