If GOP Senate candidate Tom Cotton didn't know about the popular gay dating app Grindr, he does now.

The Daily Beast unearthed what at first appeared to be an NRA ad supporting socially conservative Cotton on Grindr. The ad, which shows NRA branding, went viral immediately on Twitter. But the NRA says the organization wasn't responsible for the ad.

According to Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's managing director of Public Affairs, "the NRA did not purchase ad space on Grindr."

Brett Buereck, who is President of Majority Strategies and runs the digital advertising campaign for Tom Cotton on behalf of the NRA says, "the ad in question, is doctored, is not real, there are apps and websites that we know and purchase time on" and made clear that Grindr is not one of them.

Buereck also adds that the black bars and the missing pixel column are evidence of the image being cropped and manipulated. The firm also did an error level analysis on the images, comparing an undoctored screenshot with the doctored one. You can see in the images, which were provided by Buereck's team, that error levels indicate possible manipulation - showing how colors have been compromised.