Fact Check

Beyoncé Knowles Death Hoax

Reports that singer Beyoncé Knowles was killed in a car crash are a hoax.

Published Feb. 25, 2015

 (Official Facebook page)
Image Via Official Facebook page
Claim:
Singer Beyoncé Knowles was killed in a car crash.

Example:   [Collected via Twitter, February 2015]




On 23 February 2015, a rumor started circulating via Twitter that singer Beyoncé Knowles had been killed in a car crash.

Unlike most celebrity death hoaxes, the rumor about Beyoncé was not tied to the publication of a fake news article. Instead, it appears that boredom and a few Internet trolls were responsible for this rumor's spread:


The Twitter account @CNNNewsFacts (which has no affiliation with CNN) then attached the #RIPBeyonce hashtag to a photograph in an effort to perpetuate the rumor that Beyoncé had passed away:

The above-displayed photo does not depict a car crash involving Beyoncé, although it does capture a celebrity fatal crash site: The image was widely circulated via Twitter shortly after the death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker in 2013.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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