Hi °C | Lo °C Celebrity artist Kevin Sharkey has become the latest victim of a Facebook fraud.
He revealed to the Diary how some prankster has set up a new page, using his name and his picture, entitled The Kevin Sharkey Appreciation Cult.
And the creator of the site has made some unsavoury references to the acclaimed painter, forcing him to contact the social networking site's administrators in a bid to have it removed.
"I kept getting messages for Facebook and I was like, 'but I'm not on this', and then I found a few pages using my name, with photographs of me and a few nasty comments. I thought it was really weird and was worried that people wouldn't know that it wasn't me who put this stuff up," he explained.
"I got on to Facebook to ask them to close it down but I noticed today that it's still there. I also contacted a few of the site administrators and one of them was this kid in California. I was like, why would you want people confusing you with a middle-aged black man?
"Have you nothing better to do with your time? It's a very uncomfortable feeling knowing these sites are out there and I can't do anything about them."
Donegal-born Kevin, a former TV presenter, has now resigned himself to accepting he has little control over his odd cyberspace impersonators.
"All I can do is keep on to Facebook asking them to take them down, but that's all I can do. I just want people to know it's not really me," he continued.
But while he's seeing red over the fake sites, the painter's career is definitely on the ascent again, having just signed a deal with American company Zazzle to design shoes.
He has also moved into a new premises beside the Four Courts, where he is showing off his latest collection of work, entitled Colours.
