Donald Trump calls Pavarotti his 'great friend'. He's been dead for 10 years

This week, Italian Prime Minster Paolo Fentiloni visited Trump in the White House to discuss a G7 meeting in Italy next month.

The two held a joint press conference where POTUS praised Italy for being "a beacon of artistic of artistic and scientific achievement" and for producing artists like "Giuseppe Verdi and Mr Pavorotti".

He then added that the legendary opera singer Luciano Pavarotti was "a friend of mine, a great friend of mine".

Someone might want to delicately inform Mr Trump that the talented artist and his "great friend" has been dead for a decade.

It's not apparent if the two ever met before Pavarotti's sad death from pancreatic cancer. However, in 2002 Trump hired Pavorotti for a concert at one of his Atlantic City casinos - after an allegedly "lack-luster" performance Trump demanded a refund.

Pavarotti's widow would also probably disagree with the President's claims.

Last year, the family of the late singer asked Trump to stop using the singer's music at his rallies. In a statement they said:

As members of his immediate family, we would like to recall that the values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout the course of his artistic career are entirely incompatible with the world view offered by the candidate Donald Trump.

As usual with a Donald Trump gaffe, Twitter has been having a lot of fun at his expense:

Even comedian Jimmy Kimmel asked the "ghost of Pavarotti" if he was in fact "great friends" with Trump (the answer, of course, was no).

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