Hardcore Pawn star Les Gold confirmed he is still alive. Although a TikTok video claimed he was no longer among the living, Gold appeared in a TikTok video with his son, Seth Gold, published on April 10. Gold owns American Jewelry and Loan, the Detroit pawn shop featured in the TruTV series.
Seth shared a video of himself at the pawn shop, turning the camera to his father, whom he poked several times to show he is still alive. “As you can see, I’m not dead. But I do appreciate all the comments being made of how concerned they were that I did die,” Gold, 72, said.
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A TikTok video claiming Gold died surfaced earlier this month, notes Snopes. The claim also spread on Twitter, with the URL “https://cbs-news.us/.” One of the big clues that this was a hoax is the URL, as the real CBS News website is CBSNews.com. No reputable sources published obituaries about Gold.
Celebrity death hoaxes are popular ways for scam pages to get attention and are easily debunked. Amy Roloff, Alan Jackson, Bruce Willis, Steve Harvey, and many more have all been targeted by death hoaxes. In the Roloff case, the hoax surfaced on a Facebook page possibly engaging in “like-farming.” This is a scheme where scammers post attention-grabbing headlines to get posts shared and liked. After a post garners enough attention, the scammers then use the page to promote scammy products before Facebook shuts them down.
Gold and his family starred in Hardcore Pawn, which ran nine seasons on TruTV from 2010 to 2015. Their pawn shop is located in Detroit and is still operating. In fact, they have multiple locations, with two more opening in 2021, reports the Detroit Free Press.
“We provide a resource to those people to make their ends meet,” Seth told the Free Press in February 2021. “So we see and have seen, including today, a woman coming to get $50 that she needs to get food on her table this evening for her family. We see that time and time again. So we’re providing a service for those folks that don’t have those opportunities to go to the banks and the traditional banking institutions.”
Hardcore Pawn isn’t streaming anywhere with a subscription, but it is available to buy on most digital platforms. The show is also still repeated around the world, which leads to tourists visiting Michigan just to stop by their store. “People on a daily basis come to our store from around the world, not only the United States,” Seth Gold said. “The show is very heavily watched in Italy, Turkey, and India,” Seth told the Free Press. “So people from around the world are coming to Detroit, which is really exciting for us because it gives people the opportunity to check out the surrounding areas.”
