Julian Price

Dead Celebrities Hoax Scandals - How to Find Out if a Famous Celebrity or Movie Star Really is Dead



Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010

by Julian Price
http://www.uk-freelance-content-writer.co.uk/

Is it just me or has there been a steep increase during the last few months, in the amount of rumours and hoaxes regarding the deaths of celebrities and famous people? If you search the pages of Twitter or Google Trends and other websites too, there are frequent accounts of rumours of a dead celebrity.

Occasionally these reports turn out to be sadly true as even our celebrities cannot cheat death. However, why the disturbing and morbid trend of reporting someone dead without any facts, when they are probably quite happily chilling out by a pool somewhere and more importantly, breathing!

Unfortunately, many websites know that a report of a famous star that has died or rumoured to have died will bring them a lot of page views.

It must be unnerving and unpleasant at the very least for a living person to hear or read that they are dead, so what steps can we take to find out if the news is true?

Here are just a few of simple things to check or have in mind when you see another report of a celebrity death on the pages of search engines and websites.

1. Wait for Official Confirmation
It sounds pretty obvious, but once the major news channels take on board a story, you can be fairly certain there is a strong element of truth in it. They may not be able to officially confirm a death for a while but if they are reporting it, it is likely to be inevitable.

2. Check Your Facts
If a movie star is the subject of one of these rumours, then a really great place to check it out is the Internet Movie Database or IMDB. This is usually a very sound, reliable and factual website and you can be sure they will not enter a DOD (date of death) until it is certain.

3. Avoid Being Part of the Rumour Mill
Sometimes, fans are so distraught when their heroes pass away, that they have a tough time ever accepting it. Apparently, Elvis Presley still receives around a thousand Valentine's cards every year! So, reporting someone dead when they are not can be hugely distressing to family, friends and fans.

I am convinced that sending that out false rumours of death is an unhealthy way to seek publicity, so why not be sure of the facts before you become another cog in the rumour wheel.

Following (in no particular order) are just some of the entertainers and celebrities that unfortunately did pass on in 2009. May they all rest in peace:

Michael Jackson

Patrick Swayze

Brittany Murphy

Natasha Richardson

Farrah Fawcett

Stephen Gately

Bea Arthur

Les Paul

Ed McMahon

David Carradine

Ricardo Montalban.
Julian has diplomas in freelance journalism (with distinction), copywriting and proofreading. He is also a creative writer and poet who writes both professionally and for pleasure. Julian has written articles for an internet marketing company and although this medium is often restricted by topic, his writing still maintains a unique and often humourous style, with many of his articles achieving good results on search engines. He has found the discipline involved with this kind of work to be a great writing exercise and believes it enhances and improves other areas of his writing. Julian is becoming an established freelance writer and many of his articles here at searchwarp are a showcase of the variety and quality of his work.

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