14 DAY TRIAL // The famous actor Jackie Chan is not dead, despite the numerous rumors circulating on social media websites.
Jackie Chan is the latest celebrity to become the victim of a death hoax. According to Hoax Slayer, at least a couple of hoax posts have been making the rounds online.
“Hollywood Breaking News - Jackie Chan died after perfecting a deadly stunt. Jackie Chan falls from a building of 12 floors. Police are currently investigating. Watch the original video of the deadly stunt and their effort to save Jackie Chan,” one of the hoaxes reads.
The other one claims, “Jackie Chan died while filming a movie in Kitzbühel, Austria early this morning - June 20, 2013. Preliminary reports from the Austrian Police officials shows that the actor fell more than 50 feet to his death in a remote area of the Hahnenkamm mountains while on-set during the filming of a movie. Specific details are not yet available.”
While such celebrity death hoaxes might appear harmless, in reality they’re often used by scammers to lure unsuspecting internauts to survey scams and other shady websites, which is why it’s important for users to check out the legitimacy of such a story before distributing it.
In this case, a large number of people bought the fake story. Jackie Chan himself even published a photo on Facebook to show everyone that he’s not dead.
“Hi everybody! Yesterday, I got on a 3am flight from India to Beijing. I didn’t get a chance to sleep and even had to clean my house when I got home. Today, everybody called to congratulate me on my rumored engagement. Afterward, everybody called me to see if I was alive,” the actor wrote on Facebook.
“If I died, I would probably tell the world! I took a photo with today’s date, just in case you don’t believe me! However, thank you all for your concern. Kiss kiss and love you all!”