A prematurely reported 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 that 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 website, as a result of technical or human error. Notable cases include CNN incorrectly reporting the death of seven major world figures in 2003, 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 property. The ensuing legal disputes often continue for many years, with victims growing elderly and sometimes dying in reality before they are resolved (see Uttar Pradesh 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."Kalaupapa National Historical Park - Hansen's Disease Patients at Kalawao and Kalaupapa (U.S. National Park Service)." U.S. National Park Service - Experience Your America. Web. November 19, 2009.
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. 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. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the former President of Iran was reported killed due to a missile strike in Tehran from various news sources on the ongoing war between Israel and the United States against Iran. However, his assistant confirmed that he survived the attack.
Ali Hassan al-Majid was supposedly 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. Nicholas Alahverdian, an American activist and sex offender, faked his own death in February 2020 but was discovered alive in Scotland in October 2021. He died in June 2026. Buzz Aldrin, on October 31, 2025, during a discussion about Kim Kardashian's comments claiming the moon landing was faked, CBS Mornings, host Tony Dokoupil mistakely stated that the astronaut was dead. He was quickly corrected by his cohost Nate Burleson and Dokoupil apologized for the error. 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. Pamela Anderson, Canadian-American actress, was reported to have died on March 12, 2018, when a website impersonating ABC News reported that Anderson died after collapsing in her home. Kris Aquino, Filipino actress and member of the Aquino political family. A Facebook post in late August 2025 reported that she had died, but it was later revealed that she was still alive, and had undergone a successful blood clot surgery. She is living as of 2025. Rowan Atkinson was falsely reported as dead numerous times. His death in a car accident was proven untrue in 2012, and around one year later, a death hoax was that he committed suicide after being turned down. These hoaxes recirculated online in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
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 Mary Lou (then five months pregnant), their three children, and five years of unpaid income taxes, sailed 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 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. 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 nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin in 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 the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee during a local news report about a different person being killed in a motorcycle crash. Lem Barney, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member who played 11 seasons with the Detroit Lions, has been subject to multiple false reports of his death in 2025; a November 29 report was erroneously reported as true by the Hall of Fame and came shortly after a previous report had claimed he had died in a flood. 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 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. Billy Ray Bates, a basketball player who played in the NBA between 1980 and 1983 and in several other leagues afterwards, was referred to by Shaquille O'Neal on a live segment of Inside the NBA in April 2025 as having died. Charles Barkley, a fellow panelist on the show, had wondered aloud whether Bates was still alive. "I'm doing good for a dead man", Bates told NJ Advance Media. Ernie Johnson Jr., the host of Inside, apologized for the premature obituary, but O'Neal and Barkley did not. 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 Peace Prize in 2003 for his 'posthumous' activities.