Being one of the most popular celebrities on the planet right now, it no longer comes as a shock that there are some parties who try to use the name of Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James for their own selfish, and sometimes illicit, objectives. This is exactly the case for a huge pro-Donald Trump group that decided to use LeBron's celebrity status to further their cause.

James was reportedly misquoted on a website called Protect My Vote, which has come out with unsubstantiated claims against mail-in voting. This group purchased hundreds of paid ads on Facebook, which have since been viewed more than a hundred thousand times in August alone.

This report comes via Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post:

Some of the paid posts feature an image of LeBron James and misconstrue a quote from the basketball star, falsely suggesting that when he condemned polling closures as “systemic racism and oppression,” he was linking those closures to the expansion of opportunities to vote by mail. He was not.

LeBron James is taking center stage when it comes to promoting voting rights ahead of this election. James' camp has already fired back on this deplorable act, which completely goes against his personal beliefs:

A longtime adviser to James, Adam Mendelsohn, called the ads “shameless” and “reprehensible,” saying lawyers were examining the matter. He said the misinformation made all the more pressing the efforts by James and other Black athletes and entertainers to protect the voting rights of Black Americans, through a new effort, More Than a Vote.

The sad part about this is that out of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who've seen these ads, it would not be surprising if more than a few of them have been swayed simply because of LeBron's appearance in the posts.