Fake News: Idris Elba NOT To Join The Walking Dead As New Black Character That Dies After 1 Season

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Idris Elba NOT To Join The Walking Dead As New Black Character That Dies After 1 Season

Will Idris Elba be in the ninth season of AMC's The Walking Dead as an "expendable black character" that only appears one season? No, that's not true: that news was published by an Australian satire website, it is not real.

The story originated from an article published by the Betoota Advocate on May 31, 2018 titled "Idris Elba To Join The Walking Dead As New Black Character That Dies After 1 Season" (archived here) which opened:

In keeping with their tradition of casting briefly important black male characters that are played by actors who starred in The Wire, AMC's The Walking Dead has today announced that Idris Elba will be season nine's new expendable black male.

Idris Elba, who's character's name is reported to be one that you don't really remember, unlike Rick or Darryl, hasn't really said much about being in the show.

It is believed Elba was cast after writers argued for weeks over whether or not they would get 'Stringer or Avon' to play the new inclusion to the mostly white team of survivors.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Idris Elba To Join The Walking Dead As New Black Character That Dies After 1 Season

Season 9 is expected to be set in an ex-government building that appears safe, until it no longer becomes safe.

But The Betoota Advocate is a satirical website (even though it does not come with an explicit satire disclaimer). In December 2017 The New York Times ran a feature about the founders:

The Betoota Advocate, a Fake News Site Australians Really Love

For three years Mr. Overell and Mr. Parker have remained steadfastly in character as proprietors of a rural newspaper. Often compared to the satirical news site The Onion, The Betoota Advocate has become the sardonic voice of disenchanted millennial Australians.

So you should really not believe anything the site says without checking it first...

We wrote about betootaadvocate.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion