Chumlee from Pawn Stars is the victim of a death hoax, with an old yarn about a “marijuana overdose” making the rounds again.
The Chumlee Pawn Stars death hoax dates back to May, and the fake news story about a pot overdose is just as silly now as it was then.
According to the article, Chumlee was “snorting” pot, leading to a purported THC fatality — not true, and to our knowledge, something that is extremely unlikely to happen.
While spreading the Chumlee death story might make you look gullible, we’ve also had some user reports of the Pawn Stars hoax being attached to malware — ie, spammy Facebook pages or even computer-harming bits of software. It makes sense, though unconfirmed, as the internet’s worst scammers rely on an untrue but interesting story to spread their terrible viruses and spam.
Since we don’t want to encourage lie-lore like the Chumlee Pawn Stars death hoax, we are not linking to the original story. However, it states that in what could “come to be a medical landmark,” “Chumlee” Russell of Pawn Stars “died from a marijuana overdose Monday night and was found by friend ‘Big Hoss’ Harrison on Tuesday morning.”
The article “quotes” Dr. Angstrom H. Troubador, who allegedly says:
“The only possible way he could have died from a marijuana overdose without first clogging his lungs with soot is through the use of vaporizers. Reportedly, Chumlee had rigged up to 90 vaporizers into one tube and had a team of groupies constantly loading them up with the stickiest and most potent of marijuana available on the market.”
The thing with death hoaxes like the Chumlee Pawn Stars rumor is that given their lack of veracity, they tend to cycle. A person can only die one time, but in cyberspace, each new iteration of the story gains legs due to the fact… the victim of the death hoax is always still living.
Want more proof Chumlee is alive and well?
Cruising the strip. pic.twitter.com/oBDi1JZFI1
— Austin Russell (@chumlee_) October 14, 2013
In the tweet above, Chumlee himself posts to a verified account — that tweet was sent less than a day ago, and the Pawn Stars death hoax claims the star was found dead on a Tuesday. As always, never post a shocking celebrity death story to your own page without checking a reliable newswire first.