Claim:   CNN has reported that rapper Tupac Shakur is alive.

Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

A real looking CNN.com site is going around saying Tupac Shakur faked his death and is alive. People are saying it's all on the radio. I saw it on the website and I just don't believe it.

Origins:   When rap star Tupac Shakur died a few days after being shot as he rode in a car driven by Death Row Records chairman "Suge" Knight near the Las Vegas strip in September 1996, he joined the pantheon of "dead-but-not-dead" music stars who rumor maintains did not pass away but merely faked their deaths. Now he has also joined fellow rappers such as 50 Cent as the object of fake news stories concerning their medical status.

In April 2005, someone used a domain registered in the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru to host a spoof CNN look-alike page (accessed via the CNN-like domain name of cnnonline.co.nr) announcing the news that Tupac Shakur was "alive and well":

Unexpected twist: Tupac Shakur alive and well

Rap star Tupac Shakur appeared yesterday in Beverly Hills and casually strolled through the streets as if the rest of the world had forgotten his "murder" nearly nine years ago.

Almost out of thin air, famed rapper Tupac Shakur showed up yesterday afternoon at a shopping mall in Beverly Hills. Escorted by an entourage of some ten indivduals including ex-producer Suge Knight and fellow rapper Andre Young (aka Dr. Dre), Shakur began visiting the many high-end stores he once frequented during the peak of his fame in the mid-90s. He looked as if all was well while onlookers stared in disbelief at the "ghost" before them.

[Rest of article here.]

CNN has since forced the removal of the spoof page.

For those who didn't get the joke, the titles of the two faux links in the "Top Stories" column at the bottom of the page made it explicit: "You just got April Fooled!" and "Tupac's dead. Get over it."

Last updated:   5 April 2005

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  Sources:

    Copeland, Jeff B. and Marcus Errico.   "Tupac Shakur Is Dead."

    E! Online News.   13 September 1996.