Actor and Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez deleted an AI-generated video from X that depicted his 19-year-old niece in a way users called "creepy" and "sexually fetishizing", and he has yet to explain why he posted it.
The 52-year-old "Saved by the Bell" alum shared the video sometime before August 4, using Grok, the AI image and video generator built by Elon Musk's xAI. The clip showed a fabricated version of Lopez and his niece, Kalia "YaYa" Wong, at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. In the AI-generated scene, Wong appeared to attempt eating two hot dogs at once, spilling and rubbing mustard on her face, while an AI-generated voice mimicking Lopez said, "Oh my God! Look at you!" and "can't take her anywhere."
Lopez pulled the video before USA Today published its report on August 4. The outlet said it had reached out to Lopez's representatives for comment, but as of publication, he had not spoken publicly about the post.
Freelance journalist Yashar Ali saved the video and reposted it on X with a pointed caption:
"Uhhhh, what a creepy video for Mario Lopez to create using AI and then post... Especially since the subject is his niece!"
Ali's post preserved the footage that Lopez had tried to scrub. From there, the criticism spread fast. X user @JeffDLowe called it "one of the weirdest tweets I've ever seen." Another user, @carolinekwan, described the video as "sexually fetishizing." A third, @AshleyShyMiller, was more blunt:
"Using AI to sexualize your niece is weird and disgusting."
The AI video appeared to be based on a real clip Lopez had posted two days earlier, on August 2. In that original, non-AI video, Lopez and Wong were at a Dodgers game. Wong ate a scoop of ice cream. Lopez talked up the team's postseason prospects, saying, "Hotter than a Dodger dog on the grill out there. But the Dodgers might be even hotter. Big moves. Let's go, Skubal", a reference to Dodgers pitcher Tarik Skubal. Wong responded simply: "Oh yeah, absolutely."
That original clip drew no controversy. The AI-generated version, which transformed an ice cream cone into a messy hot-dog scene, did.
The Lopez episode lands at a moment when xAI's Grok tool already faces serious scrutiny. The platform has drawn increased criticism over suggestive and sexual content generated by its AI model. By March 2026, xAI was facing lawsuits after fake nude images of teenagers were created and spread online using the tool. The specific number and current status of those lawsuits were not detailed in USA Today's reporting, but the pattern is clear: the technology keeps outrunning the guardrails.
Lopez is not accused of generating explicit content. But the backlash reflects a growing unease, shared across the political spectrum, about what happens when AI tools make it trivially easy to fabricate realistic video of real people, especially young women, in scenarios they never consented to. Wong is 19. She appeared in her uncle's original video eating ice cream at a baseball game. She did not appear to have any say in being depicted, through AI, in a version that users found degrading.
Several open questions remain. It is unclear whether Lopez personally generated the AI video using Grok or reposted content someone else created. USA Today noted that Lopez "shared" the video and that Ali described him as having "created" it, but no official source confirmed the mechanism. It is also unknown whether the original post carried any label identifying it as AI-generated.
What is known: Lopez posted it, people recoiled, and he quietly took it down without a word of explanation.
When the tools exist to fabricate video of a real person doing things she never did, the least anyone can ask is that the adults in the room, especially family, exercise better judgment than this.
