Claim: A viral Facebook post about "the perfect woman" repeated an authentic quote from Bob Marley.
In an effort to empower women who feel insecure about their bodies, tens of thousands of Facebook users shared the post about Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley below in May 2021.
The same quote was in other posts that we found. Others circulated the quote without attribution, while others also cited Marley without proving that he actually made the comment. The posts did not come from reliable media sources like published biographies or academic articles.
Next, we attempted to prove or disprove whether anyone had indeed asked Marley "if the perfect woman existed" before his death in 1981, as well as proof to determine if the post accurately repeated his response to the question.
Firstly, we searched a database of archives from major news outlets globally for all instances in which journalists used the phrases "Bob Marley" and "perfect woman" in a single issue between 1945 and 1981 (the duration of Marley's life).
The search uncovered two results from 1979 in which reporters working for The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) and The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) used the terms in two separate articles on the same newspaper pages. Below, for example, is The Sacramento Bee:
In other words, according to Snopes' archives, no major news organization questioned Marley about a "perfect woman" and the famous singer did not allegedly respond to the inquiry, as the Facebook post claimed.
However, it was possible that less formal journalists had recorded the moment with Marley, and the database did not include that evidence because of the reporting's nature.
The next step was to check to see if Marley and his former band, Bob Marley & The Waliers, had ever used the word "perfection" in any of their songs. There was no mention of the term in any of the dozens of songs we looked at, so it seems unlikely that Marley ever wrote the alleged remark about women (or a version of it) into one of his records.
Again, it was possible that Marley's alleged sentiment regarding women was contained in a less well-known or mainstream-produced song.
Then, we looked at other studies that looked at the same question.
Google Trends, which shows how many people have searched for specific keywords, shows that relatively few people have used the search engine to see if Marley has ever mentioned "perfection" or "the perfect woman." That tracking down demonstrated that scholastics, chroniclers, and musicologists were by and large not keen on the supposed statement while sorting out memoirs about Marley.
Last but not least, we attempted to get in touch with Roger Steffens, a co-author of "Bob Marley Spirt Dancer," through the publishing house W.W. Norton & Company, which distributed the book.
Steffens is a reggae historian and "Bob Marley expert" (according to The Los Angeles Times) who's interviewed the musician's inner circle for research projects. Norton & Company has not returned our message, but we will update this report if that changes, and whether Steffens provides us with any evidence to help investigate this claim.
In sum, while no verified evidence confirmed the authenticity of the above-displayed Facebook post regarding Marley, as of this writing, it was possible he made the alleged comment at some point during his life. For that reason, we rate this claim "Unproven."
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