Robert De Niro was falsely reported dead on social media on Sunday after a shooting disrupted theWhite House Correspondents' Dinnerin Washington, with a viral post on X wrongly indicating the 82-year-old actor was the gunman and had been killed. In reality, Robert De Niro is alive, was nowhere near the event, and has not been named by authorities investigating the incident.
The reports came after confusion and anxiety rippled across social platforms in the wake of shots being fired near the high-profile media and politics dinner, attended by President Donald Trump and members of his administration.
As sketchy first details emerged, an X user operating under the handle @MelGibsonFan083 replied to a post about the unknown suspect with a photograph of De Niro and the words: 'Rest in peace, Robert De Niro. He was 82.'
It was written as a joke, but once stripped of its original context and shared elsewhere, it morphed into a claim that theKillers of the Flower Moonstar had died.
Rest in peace, Robert De NiroHe was 82https://t.co/mBESO8IdfTpic.twitter.com/ggdROaHPmR
The New York Post later reported that the alleged gunman was 31‑year‑oldCole Allen from Torrance, California. Law enforcement agencies have not linked De Niro to the shooting, and there was no record of the actor attending the Correspondents' Dinner this year. The De Niro 'RIP' message, however, travelled across X and other platforms largely detached from those facts.
The original post leaned on a running political storyline around Robert De Niro, who has been one of Hollywood's most outspoken critics of Trump. The implication, however sardonic, was that De Niro's well-publicised opposition to the president somehow made him a plausible suspect. That leap was enough for some users to take the message at face value and rebroadcast it as breaking news.
Within hours, the hoax had done what online hoaxes reliably do. Screenshots of the 'Rest in peace' line-filled feeds, often reposted by accounts that never mentioned the White House Correspondents' Dinner at all.
To recall, Robert De Niro has spent much of the Trump era as a sort of unofficial opposition figure from the entertainment world. Only last month, he joined the third wave of 'No Kings' protests against Trump and his administration, then appeared on MSNBC'sNowprogramme with civil rights activist Al Sharpton to discuss the movement.
In that interview, De Niro warned that Trump would 'try anything' if it helped him retain power or distract from damaging stories. Referring to the then‑president, he said, 'This guy is gonna try... Things are gonna happen that we don't know yet. He'll try anything. It's just what it is, who he is. So, we have to be prepared for... To go with whatever comes our way.'
Source: International Business Times UK
