Fake vaccine quote circulates after Betty White death

FILE – Actress Betty White poses for a portrait in Los Angeles on June 9, 2010. White turns 99 on Sunday, January 17. (AP Photo / Matt Sayles, File)
(AP / KXAN) – Despite a “news” article circulating on social media following the death of television icon Betty White on Friday, the star did not receive a COVID-19 recall three days before her death.
Posters on Twitter and Facebook shared an image with a quote: “Eat healthy and get vaccinated. I just got boosted today. – Betty White, December 28, 2021 ”, as well as a link to an article from Minnesota media outlet, Crow River Media, titled“ Betty White: I’m lucky I’m still healthy.
A post on Twitter shared the fabricated quote with a caption that read: “Passed away 3 days later!” Coincidence. ”Some users also shared the callback request without the quote.
“How much would you bet Betty White has the booster and bam.” Do. She was just saying she was healthy, ”wrote one Twitter user.
But the article does not include that quote, and the archived versions of the story stored by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine do not mention COVID-19 vaccine recalls either. Crow River Media did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a fact-check, The Associated Press reports that the quote came from a Dec. 28 article in People that included quotes from White given “a few weeks” before his death. The People article doesn’t mention boosters either.
White’s agent Jeff Witjas confirmed to the AP that White’s citation attribute is entirely false.
“Betty never said that,” Witjas said in an email. Witjas also confirmed that White did not receive a reminder on December 28, although he did not say if she received one.
Fact-checking site Snopes.com also reports that White may never even have spoken publicly about COVID-19 or vaccines.
White’s cause of death has not been made public. Witjas had previously told the AP that she had stayed near her home in Los Angeles during the pandemic as a precaution, but had no diagnosed illnesses. It is not known whether she died Thursday night or Friday, he said.