An online rumor reporting that rapper DMX, real name Earl Simmons, died this month, but according to Snopes he’s still alive and kicking.
The site found that the rumor started thanks to a fake news article on Facebook combined with an old report of a drug overdose. Simmons is currently being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in connection with tax evasion charges.
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Snopes contacted DMX’s attorney Murray Richman, who assured the the “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” rapper was alive and well. When asked if he had been hospitalized since his Jan. 30 incarceration, Richman said “he certainly has not.”
Simmons was arrested back in mid-2017 and pleaded guilty to 14 counts of tax evasion in July. He was released on probation, but sent back to prison on Jan. 31 for failing a probationary drug test. As part of his probation he was supposed to remain entirely sober, but that condition had already been broken when he was caught on camera handing out shots at a bar in Manhattan.
Snopes discovered that the post people had been sharing of DMX’s death was by a user named Tyrone Williams.
“Earl Simmons AKA “DMX” peacefully passed by a home in Los Angeles, California. Feb 13, 2018,” Williams wrote along with a black and white photo of Simmons.
The post was shared over 50,000 times in the last four days, but what many failed to realize that the post was a joke deliberately made to catch people who weren’t playing close enough attention to the wording.
“Reading is very fundamental,” Williams wrote in a follow-up post. “A few thousand people think DMX is dead right now smh. I never even mentioned death or him dying in the post.”
