Twitter Hashtag ‘#RIPJimmyFallon’ Causes Online Confusion, Musk & ‘Tonight Show’ Host Clash

The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon had a strange experience on Tuesday night when his name suddenly became trending, but not from a segment on his daily talk show.

Fallon was the victim of a death hoax when the hashtag #RIPJimmyFallon suddenly popped up. The host himself eventually commented on the issue by trying to appeal to Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, for help.

Despite Fallon’s request, Musk responded somewhat smarmily with, “Fix What?” and then tagged the account for the site’s Community Notes feature.

Death hoaxes are bizarre but not uncommon occurrences for prominent celebrities. Everyone from Drake to Paul McCartney to Will Ferrell to even Nick Jonas has been the subject of false death rumors before. One actor, Abe Vigoda, was the subject of near-constant death rumors since the 1980s to the point that it became an inside joke until his 2016 death.

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Twitter has been in pretty unrelenting upheaval after Musk took the reins, which has given many advertisers cold feet as misinformation runs rampant on the site thanks to a new paid verification system. It has also recently been reported that Musk is now pushing employees into a new “Twitter 2.0” initiative that will require intense work hours.

Employees that don’t indicate their compliance with the new system by 5 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 16 will reportedly be offered three months’ severance. The email arrived in inboxes at midnight PST the night before