Last night, Twitter was sent into a Royal Family frenzy after an unknown person going by Gibbo in a group chat told his mates that the Queen of England had died. Though the Queen’s continued survival was reported first thing in the morning by a Buckingham Palace spokesperson, this came far too late to stop Queen, #thequeenisdead, Buckingham Palace, Prince Charles, and other Royal Family keywords from trending all night long.
https://twitter.com/Swanny532/status/1201251370650800129
I see we have reached that time of year where I have to dispel rumours of HM's passing.
— Charlie Proctor (@MonarchyUK) December 1, 2019
The Queen is not dead. She is alive & well and is very much looking forward to hosting President Trump and other world leaders at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday for the NATO reception.
“I see we have reached that time of year where I have to dispel rumours of HM’s passing,” said Royal Central EIC Charlie Proctor in a tweet. “The Queen is not dead. She is alive & well and is very much looking forward to hosting President Trump and other world leaders at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday for the NATO reception.”
Saying that the Queen had “passed away this morning, heart attack” and that it would be announced at 9:30am the next day, the mysterious Gibbo claims his information came right from a Queens Guards WhatsApp chat.
https://twitter.com/jsleatherbarrow/status/1201279162532663296
Gibbo’s friends were, of course, skeptical of this, as someone prematurely reports the Queen’s death on Twitter roughly every half hour.
Oh god, not again #queendead
— Nichi Hodgson (@NichiHodgson) December 2, 2019
Another group member going by “Ricey” also claims to have a contact in the Guards, and promised to report back to confirm whether the Queen was actually dead or Gibbo was just full of it. Unfortunately, the internet will never know the outcome of that (unless Gibbo, Ricey and the lads take pity on us and release the rest of the chat) as the person responsible for introducing the screenshot to Twitter in the first place, user @Swanny532, is not only not a part of the group chat but told the Daily Dot that he doesn’t even remember where he found it in the first place, going on record saying, “Sorry about that.”
https://twitter.com/darren_kazzy_28/status/1201402705761251328
Gibbo and the lad’s identity is a source of fascination for much of Twitter, with his name trending last night alongside all the Queen tags.
despite this year being wank, a bloke called gibbo managed to convince the world the queen had died. it will go down in history on this app
— taity x (@2Taity) December 2, 2019
gonna tell my kids this was….. Rebekah Vardy's account#Gibbo #TheQueen pic.twitter.com/rVa4qJdUzo
— Jeanna Louise Skinner is UPDATES ONLY (@JeannaLStars) December 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/PerreiraJulian/status/1201306548515028997
https://twitter.com/matthew_bartram/status/1201411575984328705
With speculation on how he’s going to live it down now that everyone knows the Queen is very much alive.
When #Gibbo finds out the queen isnt actually dead #queendead pic.twitter.com/gI8gT2wZdY
— J (@jonbarradell) December 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/cactusmils/status/1201293449921794048
https://twitter.com/HoneyBMcKenna/status/1201553379278884864
So, the burning smell yesterday was Gibbo's pants. #queendead
— 𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚 𝙀𝙙𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙨 (@FlyingCelery) December 2, 2019
Conspiracy theories were born, including that Gibbo is actually the Queen trying to fake her own death so she doesn’t have to host Trump this week.
In her defence, I'd fake my death too if I knew Donald Trump wanted to visit me. #Gibbo
— Sideways 🎧 (@51deways) December 2, 2019
https://twitter.com/sarahstoddartb1/status/1201540900163334144
And that the whole thing was a Tory ploy to distract people in the upcoming election.
https://twitter.com/SLWestend/status/1201532795211964423
https://twitter.com/poddyw67/status/1201264729622241285
If the queen isn’t dead, what if the current government leaked that picture to distract the younger generations from the election as the older generations don’t use twitter as much as the younger ? #queendead #Queen
— Georgina (@_georginahoward) December 2, 2019
And that if the Queen had actually died, the palace would never admit it.
It probably has just happened, and now palace officials have the job of keeping the real Queen on ice for 6 months while a body double stands in, just to pretend it didn’t.
— Fergie (@Fergie_CJ) December 1, 2019
https://twitter.com/RubberPuck1969/status/1201542505692614658
Despite the morning announcement that the Queen was very much alive, the hashtag #queendead is still trending and shows no signs of dying down any time soon.
The Queen is definitely not dead, I just saw her pick up her copy of the new Sisters of Battle boxed set at my local Warhammer store. #queendead #sistersofbattle #gamesworkshop pic.twitter.com/dHU450RJRB
— Painty Ways (@AndrewJayHarvey) December 2, 2019
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