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Comedian tweets the perfect response to news story about his own death

"Huge if true."
By Sam Haysom  on 
Comedian tweets the perfect response to news story about his own death
Dara Ó Briain wasn't about to let the news of his own death faze him. Credit: Brian J. Ritchie/TalkbackTha/REX/Shutterstock

Reading a news story about your own death may sound like the plot of a Stephen King novel, but for Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain it was very much real life.

The TV star is currently in Australia for a few days performing stand-up.

On Wednesday, though, one of his fans alerted him to some alarming news from back home.

Yep: according to the "News 360", Ó Briain had died "in a tragic car crash" back in Dublin.

Mashable Image
Eh? Credit: meganews360

"An Irish stand up-comedian and television presenter, Dara Ó Briain passed away early hours of this morning after the vehicle he was travelling with fell into a ravine along the Patrick Street in Dublin city centre after colliding with a government vehicle," reads the first paragraph of the story.

Ó Briain's response was on-point.

So what's actually going on with that news article, then?

Well from the looks of "News 360", it appears to be one of a growing number of sites that generate fake news stories in what's presumably an attempt to target SEO traffic and local shares.

Searching the site name and the term "tragic car crash" brings up a number of similar stories, for instance.

Mashable Image
Credit: google

It's a strange world.

[H/T The Daily Edge(Opens in a new tab).]

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Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.


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