Aretha Franklin: Fans thought the Queen of Soul passed when she was actually recuperating from surgery following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Bill Cosby: The beloved comedian didn’t find anything funny about rumors of his death that inexplicably spread on Twitter in 2010. “To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is,” he said.
Eddie Murphy: We’re not sure what’s weirder — that tweeters started a rumor that the comedy star died last December or that the cause was allegedly a snowboarding accident.
Morgan Freeman: CNN actually re-reported an erroneous tweet that this Oscar-winning, and soon-to-be Golden Globe honorary award winner, had died.
Nelson Mandela: The man Morgan Freeman so memorably portrayed on film, civil rights icon Nelson Mandela was falsely declared dead in January of this year.
Lil Kim: When North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il died suddenly earlier this week, Lil Kim became a trending topic as many hip-hop fans simply got confused due their similar names.
Ruby Dee: In a particularly cruel Twitter hoax, theater and film icon was declared dead on social media earlier this year.
Sinbad: The comedian and former Different World star has been out of limelight for so long people on Twitter thought he was dead — he isn’t.
Denzel Washington: Denzel was the most recent star to be pegged with the mysterious snowboarding death. Again, not true. Whew!
Kanye Wes: Back in 2009, rumors swirling that Kanye had been killed in a car crash. His then girlfriend Amber Rose was unamused. She tweeted, “This RIPKanyeWest topic is not funny and it’s NOT TRUE! He has people like myself and his family that love him very much.”
Will Smith: Stories about Smith’s ‘death’ have been circulating since 2007, the most recent report came in May 2011, where a car crash was allegedly the cause.
Oprah Winfrey: A completely false report on the queen of daytime TV’s death back in 2009 was largely attributed to Internet hackers.
Celebrities are often incorrectly declared dead by Twitter. The latest victim: rocker Jon Bon Jovi. And while he had fun with the rumors, others like comedian Bill Cosby are far less amused. Check out our slideshow of other stars whose demise was prematurely determined by social media.
