Willis, Walter Bruce, was born in the United States on March 19, 1955. As well as his leading role in the comedy-drama series Moonlighting (1985–1989), he has appeared in over a hundred films, becoming known as an action hero for his portrayal of John McClane in the Die Hard franchise (1988–2013) and other roles.
In addition to The Last Boy Scout (1991), Death Becomes Her (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and Looper (both 2014), Willis has appeared in a number of other films (2012).
Willis’ later career was marked by numerous low-budget, critically panned direct-to-video films in which he starred. Willis‘ retirement was announced in March 2022 after he was diagnosed with aphasia, a disorder that negatively impacts one’s ability to understand spoken language.
On November 17, 2022, a reader emailed us to say they saw a Facebook post being shared that said actor Bruce Willis had died. We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of talented actor Bruce Willis, and we bid him a tearful farewell,” read the post.
Willis, however, was still alive. There was no mention of his death in any reputable media that we could find. It was a death hoax, and it could have had serious consequences. Not for the first time, we disproved a theory about Willis.
Such as the time we published a hoax about how Willis “expressed his unconditional support for U.S. President Donald Trump in a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon” in 2017. We also published an article checking the accuracy of a meme referencing the action movie Die Hard from 1988.
Concerning the death hoax, the Facebook post directed users to a website where the Willis death hoax was first reported on November 13. Several dubious websites, such as gnnews7.com, fnews2.com, news34zone.com, dailyarabian24.com, viral72news.com, and phnomtamao.com, were part of a network spreading false information.
There’s a chance that some of these sites were actually trying to trick visitors into downloading malware. We found that one of the sites displayed a pop-up that prompted users to install “Adobe Flash Player 7,” despite the fact that Adobe will no longer support Flash after 2020. An attempt to install malware rather than Flash was more than likely the cause of this.
We used IPQualityScore.com’s malicious URL scanner to check the six links to the Willis death hoax articles. It was determined through the scanning process that the websites were “very risky.” Not only did we find death hoaxes for Willis on these sites, but also for actors Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Garth Brooks, and Alan Jackson, all of whom are very much alive and well.
Furthermore, we came across a video on Facebook with the caption “very sad news” and “tearful farewell,” which incorrectly reported that actor Liam Neeson had passed away. Strangely, the people behind the death hoax also digitally superimposed a picture of a smiling Liam Neeson on the casket.
Be wary of any Facebook posts claiming a celebrity has died with a caption like “very sad news” or “tearful farewell,” as these are typically part of a death hoax.
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