Did Zohran Mamdani Address NYC Students In 'Bengali' To Promote Free Broadway Tickets? Here's The Truth Behind Viral Video

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been drawing attention for his use of Bengali, Mandarin, and Spanish in videos aimed at connecting with the city's diverse communities. The multilingual messages were intended to promote a new Broadway initiative for high school students, but his language skills became the focal point of online discussions.

In one video, Mamdani addressed New York City high school students in Bengali, starting with "Kemon acho," meaning "How are you," before explaining the program in Bengali. He announced that the city was giving away more than 2,000 free tickets for Broadway shows. Mamdani also mentioned that entering the lottery would come with two months of free membership to the Theatre Development Fund. He concluded the Bengali announcement by saying, "Thikachey, tahole dekha hobe show te" — "Alright then, see you at the show."

A subsequent Mandarin video added to the buzz, with some social media users speculating that artificial intelligence might have been used to generate or manipulate his speech. However, Mamdani's team quickly clarified that the speech was not AI-generated, responding to growing public skepticism over politicians speaking unfamiliar languages, especially as AI tools can now convincingly create translated voices and digitally altered footage.