Great news, everyone who's been waiting with bated breath for a photo of Snooki's brand-new baby boy! You've likely heard that magazines and photo agencies were embroiled in a major bidding war to nail the rights to publish images of little Lorenzo LaValle -- and the resulting People cover photo was just released yesterday -- but thanks to the magic of Twitter, an exclusive photo of the wee babe made the rounds a little early.

Are you ready for this much adorableness? Check out the magic that is ...

NOT Snooki's kid. Whomp whomp.

 

 


The happy parents! Not.

Although fans were initially fooled by the picture ("OMG Snooki finally posted a picture of Lorenzo! So cute!!!"), Snooki herself cleared up the confusion with the following eloquent statement:

That's our nephew lol

Apparently the image was posted to a fake JWoww Instagram account and things went from there. The public fervor over the Not-Really-Lorenzo photo was probably great news for Snooki, who reportedly hoped to sell exclusive peeks at her newborn for between $250,000 and $500,000. She even deleted the following photo of Lorenzo's nursery after sharing it via Twitter -- maybe at her agent's request?


Knowing that Snooki was holding out for the big bucks, it seems pretty obvious that she wouldn't go posting a random photo like the one seen on Twitter. I mean, here's the REAL photo:


Yup, professionally-lit and attention-grabbing and all the things we'd expect from a hugely popular Celebrity Baby Revelation. Way to nail the coveted People spread, Snooki! That'll buy a lot of ... leopard-print stuff, I'm sure.

So, now that we've actually seen little Lorenzo, can we maybe stop describing him as a "hairy meatball"? Because the little dude looks pretty cute, and not at all like this:


Did you get fooled by the "fake" Snooki baby photo?

Images via Twitter, Instagram, People, Threadless