Tom Cruise ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ lookalike wants answers amid suspicious Instagram ban: ‘Absolutely upsetting’

foxnews.com:

Once a creative virtuoso who was studying architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Jerome LeBlanc soon found his calling as the most sought-after Tom Cruise lookalike until his high-profile Instagram account was deactivated for allegedly violating its terms and conditions by "impersonating" someone he wasn’t.

Except that someone is a fictional character, Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, played by actor Cruise in "Top Gun." LeBlanc, 33, told Fox News Digital that he and his manager wife – whom he met one day on Hollywood Boulevard while impersonating the famed "Top Gun" hunk – have been stonewalled by Instagram and have lost out on a ton of business due to the platform eschewing the social media account, which had 30,000 at the time of its deactivation.

Instagram – which is owned by Meta, formerly known as Facebook – initially banned the San Diego-based LeBlanc in June 2021 before LeBlanc said he had to submit verification and proof of his uncanny looks in order to have his account reinstated.

Jerome LeBlanc bares an uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise's "Top Gun" character, Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell. (Courtesy Jerome LeBlanc) "We got it back after proving and showing my ID with the way I look that I portray 'Maverick' and they said, 'sorry for our mistake' and they gave it back," LeBlanc explained of the process, which has become painstaking to remedy after he said the platform apologized for its initial mistake.