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Yesterday, social media was whipped into a frenzy by baseless rumours that US President Donald Trump had died.
In a way, it was the internet doing what the internet does best – letting suspicions, hearsay and questionable conclusions run rampant before they could be disproved.
You might remember something similar happening with Queen Elizabeth in 2019, when a Whatsapp group announcement from someone named Gibbo led many to think the monarch had died three years before she did.
This isn’t even the first time it’s happened to Trump.
Something about being arguably the most famous person in the world while also being the oldest person to ever be elected US President seems to attract speculation.
The two assassination attempts last year and neverending questions about his health might also have brought the matter to the front of people’s minds.
Here are a few of the other times reports of Trump’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Hydroxychloroquine hoax
The first few months of the Covid pandemic were filled with confusion and fear – which some hoaxers were keen to stir.
Rumours circulated in June 2020 that the President had died after an overdose of hydroxychloroquine, a controversial coronavirus treatment that he had promoted.
News site Forbes said this story was started by an 18-year-old TikTok user, and eventually led to more than 17 million views for #RIPTrump on the app.
Around the same time, Trump was actually overseeing emergency relief for the US Virgin Islands after a devastating cyclone… and also complaining about social media trends.
The hoax spread to Twitter (as it was then known) with one user posting a fake New York Times screenshot supposedly announcing the death.
Of course, things got a lot more serious just a few months later when Trump was admitted to hospital after testing positive for the virus in October, less than a month before the Presidential election he would lose.
Making a point
The next viral Trump-is-dead moment came at the beginning of November 2022, when Joe Biden was halfway through his single presidential term.
This time, the hoax appeared to start from a specific place for a specific reason.
Comedian Tim Heidecker, known as one half of the duo Tim & Eric, shared a clip of the then-former President speaking on Twitter and added: ‘Trump, I’m sad to say sounds like he’s dying here.
‘I think in fact that maybe he is and could possibly have a very grave disease of which he is dying from.’
This instigated a wave of tweets from people describing all the ridiculous circumstances that apparently surrounded Trump’s supposed demise – just as he was preparing to formally announce his latest run at the top job.
Why? Well, this was shortly after Elon Musk had taken over the website, and users were trying to make a point about the potential spread of misinformation due to his policies.
Donald Jr gets involved
On September 20 2023, the world read shocking news from the official X account of Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
His post read: ‘I’m sad to announce, my father Donald Trump has passed away.’
It then added, for good measure: ‘I will be running for president in 2024.’
Obviously, this was complete nonsense. The elder Trump was barely out of the spotlight at the time, as he and his family were gearing up for a civil fraud case in New York.
His son’s account had – shock – been hacked. Other posts from the incident warned North Korea it was ‘about to get smoked’, referenced Jeffrey Epstein, and targeted Biden with a profane insult.
Eric Trump, Don Jr’s brother, wasn’t too angry about the hack despite the fake news of his dad’s death.
He wrote: ‘I don’t want @DonaldJTrumpJr to get his account back – this is all too entertaining.’
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