Celebrity death hoaxes are an everyday affair on the Internet, and some people who have been "killed" online in the past include Sylvester Stallone, Playboy editor Hugh Hefner and even "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin - but the Queen Elizabeth death rumor might mark the first time a major news outlet spreads the story.
It's easy to propagate lies online, particularly when the first outlet to report so-called news is an obscure little page online or a gossip site, and odd rumors like pregnancies have spread this way (youngest Kardashian Kylie Jenner, First Daughter Malia Obama and even "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston have all been victims of this); however, this wasn't the case with the Queen Elizabeth death rumor by a landslide.
In truth, the reason why this Queen Elizabeth death rumor made headlines was its very source: the British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC, the largest broadcaster in the world and the public-service broadcaster in the United Kingdom.
According to Time Magazine, the Queen Elizabeth death rumor started as Ahmen Khawaja, a BBC reporter from their Urdu-language version, tweeted that the monarch had been taken to the hospital, then announcing that the long-reigning Queen of the United Kingdom, who recently turned 89, had passed away.
According to The Guardian, Khawaja left her phone unattended for a while after making the tweets and didn't know the amount of controversy and media frenzy she caused, later going on to delete the first messages and saying it had all been a "silly prank."
NBC News reports that, following the tweet, the Queen Elizabeth death rumor spread throughout different news outlets including CNN Newsource and the German newspaper Bild; however, when the Buckingham Palace was approached about the supposed news, a spokesperson for the royal family said that the queen was alive, well and even carrying out engagement.
As the Queen Elizabeth death rumor spread, many thought she would miss hitting a record mark: on September 9, she will surpass her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria, as the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
