Premature obituary

A premature obituary is an obituary of someone who was still alive at the time of publication. Examples include that of inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a "merchant of death" for creating military explosives may have prompted him to create the Nobel Prize; black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose actual death may have been precipitated by reading his own obituary; and actor Abe Vigoda, who was the subject of so many death reports and rumours tha
a website
was created to state whether he was alive or dead.

This article lists the recipients of incorrect death reports (not just formal obituaries) from publications, media organisations, official bodies, and widely used information sources; but not mere rumours of deaths. People who were presumed (though not categorically declared) to be dead, and joke death reports that were widely believed, are also included.

Causes

Premature obituaries may be published for reasons such as the following:
* Accidental publication: release of a pre-written draft obituary, usually on a news web site, as a result of technical or human error. The most egregious examples were in 2003 when CNN incorrectly reported the death of seven major world figures in this way, and in 2020 when Radio France Internationale published as many as 100 premature obituaries.
* Brush with death: when the subject unexpectedly survives a life-threatening illness or injury which made the person appear to be dead or certain to die; or if they were really dying but not yet dead at the time of publication.
* Clerical errors: due to clerical errors, almost 500 living people in the United States are inadvertently considered dead each month by the Social Security Administration.
* Faked death: when the subject fakes their own death in order to evade legal, financial, or marital difficulties and start a new life.
* Fraud victim: many people from different countries have been registered dead by officials who are bribed by relatives who want to steal the victim's land. The ensuing legal disputes often continue for many years, with victims growing elderly and sometimes dying in reality before they are resolved (see Association of Dead People).
* Hoax: when a death is falsely reported, either by an outside party or the subject themselves, generally as a prank.
* Impostor: when an ordinary person who for years has passed themselves off to family and friends as a retired minor celebrity dies, it can prompt an erroneous obituary for the real (but still living) celebrity.
* Misidentified body: when a corpse is misidentified as someone else, often someone who was involved in the same incident or who happened to go missing at the same time.
* Missing in action: soldiers who go missing in war are sometimes incorrectly declared dead if no body is found. In particular, a number of Japanese soldiers thought to have died in World War II in fact survived—typically hiding in a remote jungle for years or even decades, believing that the war had not ended.
* Misunderstandings: such as when a Sky News employee thought that a rehearsal for the future death of the Queen Mother was real.
* Name confusion: where someone with an identical or similar name has died. Usually the subject of the obituary is famous but the deceased person is not.
* Procedural death: when a person who is not dead is purposely declared legally dead by the government. In 1866, the Kingdom of Hawaii established a policy of declaring the kingdom's lepers legally dead, quarantining them in the leper colony Kalaupapa with no visitors for the rest of their lives.

A

* Alan Abel reported his own death in a skiing accident as an elaborate hoax on New Year's Day, , to get his obituary published in ''The New York Times''. Abel died on September 14, 2018.

* Ali Hassan al-Majid was supposed dead in , after British and United States officials reported that he had died in an air strike in Basra; al-Majid had been seen going into the building that was attacked, and corpses of his bodyguards were positively identified, though there was less certainty about the identity of al-Majid's supposed corpse. After obituaries of the Iraqi general, politician and first-cousin of Saddam Hussein were published in many newspapers, reports then circulated that he had escaped by boat, and subsequently been seen joking with staff in a hospital in Baghdad. Al-Majid was captured several months later, and sentenced to death in 2007 for war crimes. He was hanged on January 25, 2010.
* Rex Alston, a retired BBC sports commentator, garnered the unusual distinction of having his marriage announced in ''The Times'' the year after that paper had published his obituary, when his internal obituary file was updated and accidentally published in 1985. Alston was 84 at the time and lived another nine years until his actual death at 93 in 1994.
* Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, terrorist leader of ISIL, was erroneously reported dead, injured or arrested numerous times over a number of years by various governments, in media, and on Wikipedia, before his death in 2019.

B

* Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist living in Ukraine was widely reported on May 29, 2018, to have been shot dead. A day later, Babchenko appeared at a press conference with the Security Service of Ukraine, claiming to have staged his death to expose Russian agents.
* Lawrence Joseph Bader, an Akron, Ohio, kitchenware salesman who faked death by drowning. On May 15, 1957, he left his wife Marylou (five months pregnant) their three kids, and five years of unpaid income taxes, sailing out on Lake Erie, and vanished (right after increasing his life insurance policy). His boat was found abandoned, and the Coast Guard announced that no one could have survived. In 1960, he was pronounced dead. He turned up in Omaha, Nebraska as married broadcaster John "Fritz" Johnson. He was found by his 21-year-old niece, and caught when his fingerprints matched those of Lawrence Bader; "Johnson" insisted the rest of his life that he had no recollection of his life as Bader. He died of a tumor in 1966; the cancer, which had caused his eye to be removed in 1964, may have preexisted before then and caused genuine amnesia.
* William Baer, a New York University professor, was declared dead by his ''New York Times'' obituary in May 1942 as a hoax by his students.
* Bill Bailey: The BBC website reported the death of the British comedian in May 2016, getting his age incorrect in the report. In a 2018 appearance on the BBC's ''The Graham Norton Show'', Bailey suggested that the report was the result of confusion following the death of a DJ in Kentucky also named Bill Bailey.

* Scott Baio: A hoax report circulated via e-mail claimed that this American actor had died in a car accident on December 18, 1997. The report was picked up by some media outlets, even causing several members of Baio's family to briefly believe he was dead.
* Josephine Baker: The entertainer was reported in 1942 to have died in Morocco of a "lingering illness". The reports were later disproven; Baker died in 1975.
* Luca Barbareschi was one of four actors who the Italian police believed had been murdered while making the 1980 horror film ''Cannibal Holocaust''. The film was so realistic that shortly after it was released its director, Ruggero Deodato, was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff film, and the court was only convinced they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof. Barbareschi is still alive, aged 65, as of 2022.
* Sabine Baring-Gould, English author, had his obituary published in ''The New York Times'' on June 5, 1906; Baring-Gould died in 1924.
* Mandela Barnes, a former member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin in Wisconsin gubernatorial election, 2018, the 2018 election for governor and lieutenant governor in Wisconsin, was erroneously reported as having been killed in a motorcycle crash north of Milwaukee. The error was caused by a photo of Barnes incorrectly being broadcast by WDJT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee during a local news report about a different person being killed in a motorcycle crash.
* P. T. Barnum premature obituary was published, unusually, not because of deception or error, but sympathy. When he took to his deathbed, Barnum expressed the wish that he might read what the papers would say about him. The ''New York Evening Sun'' obligingly printed his obituary on March 24, 1891, two weeks before his actual death on April 7. The newspaper acknowledged to its readers that Barnum was still alive at the time of publication.
* Edward Bartlett (cricketer), Edward Bartlett was reported in the 1934 edition of ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'' to have died "about February" the previous year. In fact, he lived until December 21, 1976.
* John Basedow was reported by PRWeb to have died in Thailand due to the tsunami resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake; the story was quickly retracted.
* Charles Baudelaire, a French poet, was reported to have died by Paris newspapers in April 1866, after suffering a massive stroke while in Belgium. He died the following year.
* Beyoncé: On February 23, 2015, a fake news report surfaced on Twitter claiming that the singer was killed in a car crash. The report caused the hashtag #RIPBeyonce to become trending on Twitter.
* Lal Bihari is the Indian founder of the Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People, an organisation which highlights the plight of people in Uttar Pradesh who are incorrectly declared dead by relatives in order to steal their land, usually in collusion with corrupt officials. Bihari himself was officially dead from 1976 to 1994 as a result of his uncle's attempt to acquire his land. Among various attempts to publicize his situation and demonstrate that he was alive, he stood for election against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 (and lost). He was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for his 'posthumous' activities.
* Biz Markie, rapper known for his 1989 single "Just a Friend". In December 2020, it was reported that Markie was staying in a rehabilitation facility as a result of a stroke he had suffered after going into a diabetic coma. On July 1, 2021, rumors of his death circulated on Twitter. His representative told Rolling Stone, "The news of Biz Markie's death is not true, Biz is still under medical care, surrounded by professionals who are working hard to provide the best healthcare possible." Markie died at a Baltimore hospital fifteen days later, on July 16, at age 57.
* Jack Black. On June 4, 2016, the Twitter page of Black's band Tenacious D announced the actor and musician's death. However, the next day both Black and bandmate Kyle Gass clarified that the page was hacked and that Black was alive and well.
* Paul Blais, a US Air Force senior airman, was listed as one of 19 people believed killed in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. However, it transpired that he was alive, though in a coma, having been confused with another airman who had died.
* Rudy Boesch: the Navy SEAL best known for his appearances on the U.S. reality competition ''Survivor (U.S. TV series), Survivor'' was falsely reported dead in August 2019. Boesch, who was in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease at the time, died three months later.
* Lucien Bouchard: the former Quebec premier (who had been seriously ill) was reported dead by CTV Television Network, CTV in September 2005. The network began broadcasting a live tribute to the politician, but cut it short with a sheepish confirmation that he was in fact alive, blaming a report from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada for the error. However, Radio-Canada had never reported that Bouchard had died, and quickly sent out a press release insisting on an apology. CTV later retracted the statement blaming Radio-Canada, without ever confirming how they themselves had come to make the mistake.
* Peter Boyle, TV and movie character actor, was briefly and incorrectly declared deceased in October 1990, a few weeks following a massive stroke where he was almost paralyzed and could not move or speak for nearly six months. His incorrect lifespan of 1933–1990 is listed in the book ''Cult Movie Stars'' by author Danny Peary. Boyle made a complete recovery from the blood clot in his brain and continued acting despite multiple and persistent health problems, including high blood pressure. He had another brush with death in 1999 when he suffered a heart attack while working on the set of the sitcom ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', but he again recovered and was working again within one week. Boyle died on December 12, 2006.
* James Brady, White House Press Secretary, was shot in the head in the Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Three hours later, amid confusion about the extent of his injuries, all three U.S. broadcast TV networks erroneously announced that Brady had died, triggering an on-air outburst by ABC News anchor Frank Reynolds when the information was revealed incorrect. This led to greater subsequent caution about issuing death reports during rapidly developing situations. Brady died on August 4, 2014, 33 years after the shooting. His death was ruled homicide, since it was ultimately caused by his injury.
* Gordon Brown: Following the death of footballer Gordon Banks on February 12, 2019, Sky News presenter Adam Boulton erroneously reported that the former prime minister of the United Kingdom had died. Boulton corrected himself a few seconds later.
* Adam Buckley: The resident of Santa Clarita, California, who had schizophrenia, went missing in June 2018. On July 2, a burned body was found in Lancaster, California, Lancaster, and the Los Angeles County Coroner misidentified the body as being Buckley's. In late August, the Coroner released a statement saying that they had misidentified the body, and Buckley was found alive on September 14.
* Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria, has been the subject of persistent rumors that he had died and been replaced by a body double after experiencing ill health in 2017. Buhari, 74 years old at the time, suspected the false rumors were ginned up and revived in 2018 by opposing politicians seeking the office in the 2019 Nigerian general election, 2019 presidential election.
* Rodger Bumpass (voice actor), reported in August 2006 to have died during heart surgery, by Jonesboro, Arkansas station KAIT, the Internet Movie Database, and Arkansas State University's newsletter.
* John Burney: Shortly after the collapse of his business, this resident of Helena, Arkansas disappeared on June 11, 1976. He was eventually declared dead, which allowed both his wife and his company to receive life insurance benefits. However, Burney resurfaced in December 1982 when he visited his father who had recently been injured in an accident. In the intervening years, Burney had taken up residence in Key Largo, Florida under the name John Bruce and had married a second wife without ever divorcing his first one. He was eventually convicted of fraud.
* Pat Burns, a NHL coach was reported to have died from cancer on September 17, 2010, by the ''Toronto Star''. He actually died two months later on November 19.
* Steve Burns, host of children's show ''Blue's Clues'', was rumored to have died from a drug overdose in 1998; others claimed that Burns was struck and killed by a car. Burns went on ''The Rosie O'Donnell Show'' to debunk those rumors.
* Barbara Bush, former First Lady of the United States, had a draft obituary (conspicuously marked "DO NOT PUBLISH") leaked by CBSNews.com on April 15, 2018, after her family announced that she was in failing health and ending further medical treatment. The following day, a fake news Web site pretending to be CNN.com falsely claimed Bush had died. Bush died one day after that on April 17.
* George H. W. Bush was erroneously reported dead in an e-mail by WBAP (AM), WBAP-AM/KTCK-FM, WBAP-FM, due to a false tip. At the time, Bush was in intensive care recovering from illness. The German magazine ''Der Spiegel'' erroneously published a draft obituary for Bush on December 30, 2012, during his recovery from the same illness. Bush had previously been the subject of another near-miss while President, when HLN (TV channel), CNN Headline News almost reported a false tip stating Bush had died. Another death hoax circulated in July 2014, when it was reported that Bush had died from food poisoning. Bush Death and state funeral of George H. W. Bush, died on November 30, 2018.
* Either George H. W. Bush or his son George W. Bush, when the moving banner headline on South African television's ETV News read "George Bush is dead" in 2009. A technician who was testing the banner accidentally pressed the "broadcast live for transmission" button, according to the BBC.

C

* Janelle Cahoon: in December 2005, the ''Duluth News Tribune'' claimed that the Benedictine nun's funeral had been shown in a 1999 documentary. The mistake caused much amusement at her monastery, with some sisters asking her what heaven was like, and others referring to the incident as "Dead Nun Walking".
* Mark Calaway (Professional wrestling, professional wrestler better known as The Undertaker): On April 17, 2014, rumors claimed that Calaway was found dead in his New Mexico home.
* Carlos Camejo, a Venezuelan man declared dead in September 2007 after a traffic accident, revived during his autopsy. After making an incision in his face, examiners realized something was wrong when he started bleeding. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable", Camejo said.
* Graham Cardwell, a Lincolnshire dockmaster who disappeared in September 1998 and was assumed drowned. Eight months later he was discovered living in secret in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands. He claimed he had thought he was suffering from cancer (though had not sought medical attention) and wanted to spare his family the trauma of it.
* David Cameron, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, when David Bowie's death was announced in January 2016, a newsreader on Heart (radio network), Heart Radio Scotland accidentally announced that David Cameron had died.
* Feliberto Carrasco: this 81-year-old Chilean man woke up in his coffin at his own wake in January 2008. His family had found his body lying limp and cold, and assumed he must have died. While he was lying in his coffin, dressed in a suit and surrounded by relatives, his nephew saw him wake up, though did not believe it at first. Carrasco said he was not in any pain, and asked for a glass of water. His death had been announced on a local radio station, which issued a correction.
* Whitney Cerak: a student was thought to have died in April 2006 when a van from Taylor University collided with a tractor trailer, leaving five dead. Fourteen hundred people attended her funeral. Fellow student Laura Van Ryn was thought to have survived the accident, which left her in a coma and heavily bandaged. Suspicions were only aroused when during her gradual recovery in the hospital, Van Ryn started making strange comments and using names "wrongly"; her university roommate also reported that she did not appear to be Van Ryn. Weeks after the accident, when concerned hospital staff asked her her name, she wrote "Whitney Cerak", which was confirmed by dental records. The tragic mix-up appeared to have been caused by Cerak's and Van Ryn's somewhat similar appearance, and confusion at the crash scene. Cerak co-wrote a book about her experience titled ''Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope''.
* Joshua Chamberlain: an American Civil War officer and Governor of Maine was shot through the hip and groin in the 1864 Siege of Petersburg, he was thought to be on the point of death, and so was reported dead by at least one newspaper (perhaps ''The New York Times''). However, he gradually recovered in hospital. Chamberlain was shown the newspaper report 'when they thought he was able to take it', and reportedly 'got a great kick out of seeing his obituary'. He died in 1914.
* Jackie Chan: On June 20, 2013, a false report claimed that the actor had been killed in an accident while filming a movie in Austria. Another hoax article that surfaced in September of that year had also reported the same thing.
* Karen Chandler: the 1950s singer from Rexburg, Idaho known for her hit song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me" was erroneously reported to be dead by the Los Angeles Daily News on October 27, 2010. She died a week later on November 3 at age 87.
* Jan Chapman: The 'In Memoriam' segment of the 89th Academy Awards, on February 26, 2017, included Janet Patterson, a costume designer who died in 2016. However, the segment used a photo of Chapman instead, resulting in friends and family believing that she was dead.
* Dick Cheney: The former Vice President of the United States in the #CNN.com incident, CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had been based on the Queen Mother's, described Cheney as 'Queen Consort' and the 'UK's favorite grandmother'.
* Cher: When Margaret Thatcher died the Twitter hashtag "#nowthatchersdead" was misinterpreted as "Now that Cher's dead."
* Winston Churchill: He suffered a stroke on January 15, 1965, and Death and state funeral of Winston Churchill, died on January 24. But on January 18, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC's Halifax station CBHT-DT, CBHT inadvertently broadcast a tribute that Lester B. Pearson, Lester Pearson had pre-recorded for transmission in case of Churchill's death. This led at least one radio station to report that Churchill had in fact died.
* Francesca Ciardi: see #B, Luca Barbareschi
* Arthur C. Clarke: science fiction writer, had his obituary published by the G.R.A.A. (Goddard Retirees and Alumni Association) newsletter in April 2000. The obituary says he died on February 10, 2000, and even specifies the cause of death as interstitial lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis. To date, no correction seems to have been published. Clarke died in 2008 of "respiratory complications and heart failure".
* Michael Cleveland: In October 2014, this 46-year-old man was taken to a hospital near Buffalo, New York after suffering a heart attack. A doctor declared him dead, but according to his wife he was clearly still breathing and responsive. Almost two hours passed before the doctor finally acknowledged that Cleveland was alive, and he died later that morning. , Cleveland's wife is involved in a lawsuit against the hospital.
* Hillary Clinton: On September 11, 2016, WABC-TV journalist Joe Torres accidentally said that the American politician had died when reporting on a story about her falling ill at a 9/11 memorial service; Torres spoke of "Hillary Clinton's death" when he had intended to say "Hillary Clinton's health".
* Bill Clinton: On December 24, 2020, the 42nd United States President was also the subject of a death hoax on Twitter with a tweet from The Reveal Report indicating he had died and their sources said his death would be made public soon. However, his wife Hillary Clinton, Hillary sent Christmas wishes the same day to her followers on Instagram with no indication the former president had died.
* Colin Clive: According to ''Variety (magazine), Variety'', the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph erroneously published an obituary for actor Colin Clive in 1937 after the death of a similarly named actor, Colin Chase. Clive himself died later that year at age 37.
* Kurt Cobain: The rock musician was reported dead by CNN (though he was in fact in a coma) after an overdose in Rome in March 1994, shortly before his actual Suicide of Kurt Cobain, death in April.
* Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In 1816 the writer heard his death mentioned in a hotel by a man reading out a newspaper report of a coroner's inquest. He asked to see the paper, and was told that "it was very extraordinary that Coleridge the poet should have hanged himself just after the success of his play [''Remorse'']; but he was always a strange mad fellow". Coleridge replied: "Indeed, sir, it is a ''most extraordinary'' thing that he should have hanged himself, be the subject of an inquest, and yet that he should at this moment be speaking to you." A man had been cut down from a tree in Hyde Park, and the only identification was that his shirt was marked 'S. T. Coleridge'; Coleridge thought the shirt had probably been stolen from him. Coleridge died in 1834.
* Jeffrey Combs (actor): was confused with a businessman named Jeffrey ''Coombs'' who was aboard hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center (1973–2001), World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. Combs the actor was pronounced dead by news media outlets and had to announce publicly that he was still alive.
* Sean Connery (actor): in an October 25, 1993 appearance on the ''Late Show with David Letterman'', Connery described recent reports of his death as a result of confusion over the then-recent death of former Texas governor John Connally as well as rumours that Connery had recently undergone treatment for throat cancer. Connery died on October 31, 2020.
* Alice Cooper: in the early 1970s, ''Melody Maker'' magazine confused readers by publishing a satirical concert review of the rock musician in the form of a mock obituary. So many fans took it literally that Cooper had to issue a statement, reassuring them: "I'm alive, and drunk as usual."
* Stephanie Courtney: The actress who plays Flo (Progressive), Flo in commercials by Progressive Corporation, Progressive Insurance was the subject of a death hoax. On May 27, 2014, it was falsely reported that she had been killed in a car crash.