Messages circulating vigorously via Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets are claiming that much-loved actor Adam Sandler has died.
As well as the circulating messages, several R.I.P. Adam Sandler Facebook Pages and Groups have been established.
However, the claims in the messages are untrue. Adam Sandler is very much alive. There are no credible news or media reports about the actor’s supposed demise. Given that the media love nothing more than a good celebrity death story, you can rest assured that the death of any high profile person will be extensively reported by news outlets around the world.
In fact, this crop of messages is just the latest in an ongoing series of hoaxes that have falsely claimed that Sandler has died. Poor Adam has already “died” at least twice before this year, in June 2012 and September 2012. And he has “died” in previous years as well.
In one widely circulated version of the hoax, he was supposedly killed in a snowboarding accident in Switzerland. Other versions of the hoax do not specify a cause of death. All are totally false.
And Sandler is certainly not the only celebrity that has been targeted in Internet death hoaxes. Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Lil Wayne, Bill Nye, Rihanna, Bon Jovi, several WWE wrestlers and even Cuban leader Fidel Castro have all featured in recent death hoaxes.
Before sharing or reposting any messages about the death of a famous – or infamous – person, it is always wise to check the veracity of the claims via a legitimate news source.
A simple search of a news service such as Google News should quickly reveal if a social media-driven claim about a celebrity death is true. Note also, that some of these celebrity death messages contain links to survey scam, phishing, or malware websites.
A screenshot of the false death messages:
