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Did Simon Cowell just die in the hospital after a horrendous car accident?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Updated @ 2023-04-14 : Added more examples, including from MediaMass
Originally posted @ 2023-01-07
Claim : Simon Cowell Just Died In A Tragic Car Crash!
People are sharing YouTube and TikTok videos claiming to show Simon Cowell dying in a hospital after a horrendous car accident, with titles like :
(RIP) Very Sad News 2 minutes ago in Chicago, “America’s Got Talent” Simon Cowell, He has been confirmed as…
40 minutes ago in Chicago, “America’s Got Talent” Simon Cowell, he has been confirmed as…
10 minutes ago in Chicago, “America’s Got Talent” Simon Cowell died suddenly at the hospital
5 minutes ago! Millions of people cried over the sudden death of “America’s Got Talent” Simon Cowell
10 minutes ago : We announce very sad news about Simon Cowell, he has been confirmed as..
5 minutes ago announced that simon cowell died at the hospital…???????? #viral #viralvideo
Simon Cowell Passed Away #Shorts
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Truth : Simon Cowell Did Not Die In A Tragic Car Crash!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by people to generate income from page views and YouTube advertising, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Simon Cowell Is Still Alive + Well!
Simon Cowell – the long-time judge on Britain’s Got Talent and America’s Got Talent is still very much alive and well, as of Wednesday, 12 April 2023, when he was spotted arriving to film America’s Got Talent in California!
On 8 April, he also retweeted a Weekend Magazine posted about how Bruno Tonioli almost killed him, with the comment “Yes, it really was Chaos”.
He was also interviewed in that Weekend Magazine edition – many days, weeks and months since people started claiming that he died from a tragic car accident, or some unknown cause.
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Fact #2 : No Legitimate Media Outlet Reported His Death
These YouTube videos have been circulating for weeks and months, but people don’t seem to notice that no legitimate media has reported his death.
Never mind his wealth, Simon Cowell is a celebrity in his own right. Even if he did not die, the worldwide media would have reported on his car accident.
No legitimate media outlet reported that Simon Cowell was involved in any car accident, much less died in a hospital after a horrendous car accident. That’s because it never happened!
Fact #3 : The Photos Were Edited
I analysed the photos used in these videos, and traced the origin of four examples used in many of these videos.
This photo that shows Simon Cowell on a hospital bed, was edited from a real photo of a kidney transplant patient called Gerhard van Tonder. The photo was taken in October 2021 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Healthcare professionals will immediately notice that Simon Cowell is not intubated despite being mysteriously hooked up to a ventilator!
If you look carefully, you will also notice that Simon Cowell’s head is oddly larger than normal – to superimpose over Gerhard’s head in the real photo.
If you zoom into the fake photo, you can even see a white border around Simon Cowell’s head – a clear sign it was added to the photo.
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The photo of this white SUV was taken on July 17, 2019 on Highway 6 near Freelton, Ontario, Canada. The driver was a 38 year-old woman, not Simon Cowell.
This photo was also misappropriated from another car accident, this time in the Selma neighbourhood in the San Fernando Valley, on May 9, 2021.
The driver was a 57 year-old woman who died in that accident. Again, not Simon Cowell.
This fake photo is a pretty good edit, albeit showing Simon Cowell smiling with his eyes closed – odd for someone who was dying or has already died.
But it was really a photo of Blake Bargatze, a 24 year-old man, who was being treated at a South Florida hospital for COVID-19 in March 2021.
Bargatze, unfortunately, did not qualify for the COVID-19 vaccine at that time, and got infected. His condition grew worse over time, and he eventually had to be placed on an ECMO machine to let his lungs heal.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and he ended up with a double-lung transplant in June 2021, to save his life.
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Fact #4 : Simon Cowell Death Hoax Is Driven By Fake Fact Check Too
This Simon Cowell death hoax is, ironically, also being driven by a fake fact check article by the MediaMass Project, which keeps “updating” the dates in their fake fact check article:
News of television host Simon Cowell’s death spread quickly earlier this week causing concern among fans across the world. However the April 2023 report has now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Thankfully, the creator of Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor is alive and well.
Rumors of the television host’s alleged demise gained traction on Thursday after a ‘R.I.P. Simon Cowell’ Facebook page attracted nearly one million of ‘likes’. Those who read the ‘About’ page were given a believable account of the British television host’s passing:
Their claim of a viral R.I.P. Simon Cowell Facebook page is false. There is no such Facebook page. It is their standard fake fact check spiel for fake celebrity deaths.
The statement from Simon Cowell’s unnamed rep confirming that he is not dead is exactly the same as statements from other celebrities whose reps MediaMass claimed were victims of death hoaxes, like Cristiano Ronaldo, Justin Bieber, Sylvester Stallone,, Tom Hanks, Dolly Parton, Lucy Liu, and Melanie Laurent.
He joins the long list of celebrities who have been victimized by this hoax. He’s still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet.
Hidden in the description page for the MediaMass Project is a disclaimer that they are a “satire” website. That’s the usual “cover” for websites peddling fake news.
Regardless of their reasons, anything posted by MediaMass.net must be considered as fake news, until proven otherwise.
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Fact #5 : This Is Just Fake Celebrity News
This is yet another example of fake celebrity news created to generate page views and money through advertising, just like these examples:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
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