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Rue McClanahan’s death goes viral—5 years after she actually died

Here we go again.

 

Michelle Jaworski

Streaming

Posted on Jun 12, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 2:43 pm CDT

On Thursday, the Internet was full of condolences and tributes for Rue McClanahan, who was best known for playing Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls. But there’s just one problem with that: McClanahan died five years ago.

In a day where the deaths of Christopher Lee, Ornette Coleman, and Dusty Rhodes made headlines, some people mourned the loss of McClanahan as well. A CBS News obituary from 2010 started to go viral as people shared their grief without checking the date of the article.

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For the record, McClanahan died June 3, 2010 at the age of 76 after having a stroke. But this isn’t the first time someone mistook her obituary as being more recent. The same thing happened this time last year—with the same CBS obituary, too.

Meanwhile, those who didn’t fall for the hoax are rubbing it in gullible Golden Girls fans’ faces.

Let’s not make this an annual thing, shall we?

H/T Time | Photo via antsnax/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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*First Published: Jun 12, 2015, 11:16 am CDT