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For years, comedian Adam Sandler has been the target of fictional online reports supposedly informing the world of his death. For example, on January 13, 2017, LinkBeef published an item asserting that Sandler had been found dead of an apparent suicide: That report was nothing more than another celebrity death hoax from fake news purveyor LinkBeef, whose previously published falsehoods include claims that a gang member died after gold plating his genitals, that a lab-grown baby had been born, that the pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was found alive in Taiwan, and that a wealthy man attempted to recruit many women to be the prospective mothers of his children. Like many long-running fake news outfits, the page renders first as LinkBeef before reloading to display Interesting Things Daily. Then, in late 2020, a TikTok user revived the false rumor by posting a video with the text, Adam Sandler has now been pronounced dead after drowning. Again, this was not a factual retelling of events. Sandler was alive and in the public's eye at the time, promoting recent projects, such as Hubie Halloween. The rumor surfaced again in January 2022, and tabloids such as The Sun featured the above-mentioned TikTok in articles compiling social media users' reaction to the false rumor. Meanwhile, the phrase Adam Sandler dead filled Twitter, and pieces such as the below-transcribed excerpt from a Nigerian junk news website were circulating: This was untrue. Sandler, 55, was not dead and the alleged story about a vehicle crash appeared to be made up out of whole cloth. In fact, Sandler was engaging with fans publicly in January 2022, including via the below-displayed tweet to honor Bob Saget after his death (that was real) on Jan. 9.
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