Tom Hanks died, confessed admiration for Trump.
The claim originated in an article published by Conservative Tears on March 22, 2020, titled "Tom Hanks, 65, Passes Away, Confessed Admiration for Trump at the End" (archived here). It opened:, Prolific acting legend, Tom Hanks, passed away suddenly this morning. The cause of his death has not been released., Hanks enjoyed a long and successful career. He was well-liked by all those in the Hollywood community and his movies were always well received by the public, even the really crappy ones like "Castaway." His body of work will live on for decades to come., , Users on social media only saw this:, The world has lost an iconic acting legend., The story is entirely made up. Hanks did not pass away, and he and his wife Rita Wilson are recovering from the novel coronavirus. On March 11, 2020, the couple announced on Instagram that they had tested positive for the virus. (The hoax story never referenced this fact.), On March 18, 2020, the actor gave a health update on social media:, Hey folks. Good News: One week after testing Positive, in self-isolation, the symptoms are much the same. No fever but the blahs. Folding the laundry and doing the dishes leads to a nap on the couch. Bad news: My wife @ritawilson has won 6 straight hands of Gin Rummy and leads by 201 points. But I have learned not to spread my Vegemite so thick. I travelled here with a typewriter, one I used to love. We are all in this together. Flatten the curve. Hanx, A post shared by  Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) on Mar 17, 2020 at 2:19pm PDT, , "The Conservative Tears site also got Hanks age wrong. He is 63, not 65.", The site is part of the "America\s Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine., Blair has been in a feud with fact checking website Snopes and has also criticized other fact checkers who have labeled his work "fake news" instead of satire. In reaction, he has recently rebranded all of his active websites and Facebook pages so they carry prominent disclaimers everywhere., Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):, About SatireBefore you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":, "sat·ireˈsaˌtī(ə)rnounThe use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize peoples stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.", "Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this sites pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if youre still having an issue with that satire thing.", "Articles from Blairs sites frequently get copied by other fake news sites that often omit the satire disclaimer and any additional hints the stories are false. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down, but new ones keep cropping up.", Here is a video of Blair explaining how his process works:, , If you are interested in learning more about Blair and the history of his sites, here is something to get you started:, STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it., If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer, it is, of course, also fake news., NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes conservativetears.com as:, According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here., We wrote about Conservative Tears before. Here are our most recent articles that mention the site:, See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:, "Ryan Cooper, a staff writer and fact-checker for Lead Stories, is the former Director of Programming at CNN International, where he helped shape the networks daily newscasts broadcast to more than 280 million households around the world. He was based at the networks Los Angeles Bureau. There, he managed the team responsible for a three-hour nightly program,\xa0Newsroom LA.", "Formerly, he worked at the headquarters in Atlanta, and he spent four years at the London bureau. An award-winning producer, Cooper oversaw the networks Emmy Award-winning coverage of the uprising in Egypt in 2011. He also served as a supervising producer during much of the networks live reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006, for which CNN received an Edward R. Murrow Award.", Note: if reading this fact check makes you want to contact us to complain about bias, please check out our Red feed first., Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or\n      inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.\n      \n      Spotted something? Let us know!., Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or\n        inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.\n        \n        Spotted something? Let us know!.
Fact Check: Tom Hanks Did NOT Pass Away, Did NOT Confess Admiration For Trump | Lead Stories