Bill Nye Latest Celebrity Death Hoax

Rumors that Bill Nye “The Science Guy” has died spread on the internet on Sunday. Though the rumors were quickly refuted, the rumor took on a life of its own.

For a brief time, Nye’s Wikipedia entry listed his death on August 26, 2012, though this information was quickly removed. No major networks reported his death, yet his “death” trended for several hours on Twitter. Oddly, a Facebook page entited “R.I.P. Bill Nye” was created two days before the rumor took hold and has already achieved over 70,000 likes as of this writing.

The rumor that Bill Nye has died itself is dying out, though a few people getting word late are still passing this false rumor around. He is the latest in a string of celebrity “death” rumors to plague the internet this summer. Some users expressed anger that their childhood hero was the target of such a rumor, while others had fun with it, posting “R.I.P. Bill Nye” with accompanying photos of the wrong celebrity, such as Owen Wilson, Bob Saget, or Steve from Blues Clues.

Bill Nye is the Alive Science Guy. This isn’t the first time the internet has tried to kill Nye off. Read this article from 2011 about a similar rumor.

Other recent celebrity death hoaxes:

• Eddie Murphy Did Not Die in a Snowboarding Accident
• Hoax: Is Robin Williams Dead?
• Trending on Twitter: RIP Justin Bieber. NOT True!
• Rumor: Is Mikhail Gorbachev Dead? No!
• Brad Pitt Did Not Die in a Snowboarding Accident