Betty White Becomes a Victim of Death Hoax

Veteran comic actress Betty White became the latest victim of a death hoax when her fans misread a pun intended statement about her blonde hair and began mourning her on social media. The headline which was made on a satirical website Empire News on Wednesday read like this “Actress Betty White, 92, dyes peacefully in her Los Angeles home”. The fans never really noticed the ‘y ‘ in dyes and interpreted it as dies. This was a perfect example of wordplay and use of a homophone to confuse people. Many of her fans shared the story on Facebook and Twitter claiming that the actress had really passed away.

According to the report posted on the website, White is not really a natural blonde and dyes her hair to keep that blonde look. The site even went ahead and published a fake quote by the actress. The disclaimer page on the site clearly states that anything that they publish is only meant for entertainment purposes. The headline created such a flutter that White’s agent Jeff Witjas had to assure people that the actress was safe and sound and is currently shooting at the sets of the TV series Hot in Cleveland.

Betty White was born in Illinois in 1922 and started her career in radio singing and reading for commercials. As soon as she got her first professional acting job, war broke out and she had to join the American Women’s Voluntary Services. Soon after the war ended, her career began to flourish as her talk show, The Betty White Show made her an instant hit. She established herself as a comic actress after joining the film industry and won numerous awards.

This latest episode clearly shows that it is not really difficult to kill off celebrities with the help of social media. This should be a lesson to all those who do not have good grasp over the English language.