Betty White Has Died: The Last ‘Golden Girls’ Star Is Gone, But No She Isn’t — The Celebrity Death Hoax Strikes Again
Yes, folks, Betty White is dead. The beloved star of the Golden Girls has died for likely the seventh or eighth time in the last few years. The internet celebrity death hoax is something that plagues so many different people, and for some reason, it always catches so many off-guard. It recently hit Betty White yet again, and reports of her death are making the social media rounds. However, she is indeed still alive.
It’s not exactly known why this happens so often, but it does.
Making matters even more mind-boggling is that the articles getting passed around with these celebrity death hoaxes are usually old. A lot of people will start sharing the articles and won’t look at the dates to see when they were actually written.
That is the problem with the Betty White death hoax, and it’s made even worse for a number of reasons.
The article in question is one that was published by Empire News, a satire site, and it details that Betty White “dyes peacefully in her Los Angeles home.” It was written in September of 2014 and has a lot of people sharing it and not looking at the date.
Well, there’s an even bigger problem.
Not only does the article have fake quotes from White and others, but the article talks about her dyeing… her hair.
“Oh, I started dyeing it ages ago when my color started to fade away to a more whiteish, greyish color. I thought to myself, ‘Well Betty, if you can’t have the dark color anymore, might as well try on the blonde for a while,’ and it just kind of stuck. When I played Rose on Girls, the joke about my natural hair color made it into several episodes. I’ve always had a sense of humor about it.”
Yes, that is a fake quote and something she didn’t say at all, but it’s all about dyeing her hair. That just goes to show that the article isn’t just fake. Not only do people fail to notice the date, but they also fail to have read the article and see what it’s about.
There is another piece going around as well regarding Betty White’s death, but again, it’s also not true. Media Mass brought notice to this celebrity death hoax, and it actually seemed a bit more realistic than the “dyeing” story.
A Facebook page called “R.I.P. Betty White” was created earlier this week, and it soon began making the rounds. The info in the “About” section of the page is obviously just trying to get more likes.
“At about 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday (November 11, 2015), our beloved actress Betty White passed away. Betty White was born on January 17, 1922 in Oak Park. She will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.”
As of this writing, Betty White is alive and well at the ripe young age of 93. She is the last member of the Golden Girls still alive.
Estelle Getty died back in 2008, and Bea Arthur passed away in 2009. Rue McClanahan died in 2010, but earlier this year, everyone thought she had just died. That was an entirely different version of a celebrity death hoax, where the celeb was truly dead, but no one realized it had happened years before.
The celebrity death hoax is a strange thing that plagues the internet and creates victims such as Willie Nelson, James Earl Jones and even Steve Burns from Blues Clues. Betty White is alive and still doing so well. There is only one of the Golden Girls left, and if she has anything to say about it, she won’t be going anywhere for a long time.
[Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images]
