Did French rapper Maître Gims die after a road accident in Paris? No, that's not true: a Russian fake news website specializing in death hoaxes about French celebrities struck again. The news is not real.
The story originated from an article published by chanteur-news-fr.info on October 24, 2018 titled "Accident grave à Paris - Le célèbre chanteur Maître Gims est décédé aujourd'hui à l'âge de 33 ans, des suites d'un accident de la route." (archived here) which opened:
Accident grave à Paris - Le célèbre chanteur Maître Gims est décédé aujourd'hui à l'âge de 33 ans, des suites d'un accident de la route.
Maître Gims, de son vrai nom Gandhi Djuna, est un rappeur, chanteur et compositeur congolais né le 6 mai 1986 à Kinshasa2.
Il est issu d'une famille de musiciens, son père était un chanteur du groupe Viva La Musica de Papa Wemba3,4 et il a des frères rappeurs. Membre du groupe Sexion d'Assaut, il sort son premier album solo Subliminal en 2013. L'album connaît un succès commercial avec plus de 1 000 000 d'exemplaires vendus5. En 2017, Maître Gims a vendu plus de 5 millions d'albums depuis le début de sa carrière6.
Translated that reads:
Serious accident in Paris - The famous singer Maître Gims died today at the age of 33, following a road accident.
Master Gims, whose real name is Gandhi Djuna, is a Congolese rapper, singer and composer born on May 6, 1986 in Kinshasa2.
He comes from a family of musicians, his father was a singer of the group Viva La Musica of Papa Wemba3,4 and he has brothers rappers. Member of the group Sexion d'Assaut, he released his first solo album Subliminal in 2013. The album has a commercial success with more than 1,000,000 copies sold5. In 2017, Master Gims has sold more than 5 million albums since the beginning of his career6.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail so they might have mistaken it for real news:
Accident grave à Paris - Le célèbre chanteur Maître Gims est décédé aujourd'hui à l'âge de 33 ans, des suites d'un accident de la route.
FR - NEWS ONLY
However, chanteur-news-fr.info was involved with a viral death hoax before only a few days ago, we reported on that here:
You'll notice the exact same cause of death and the style of the article was identical too: most of it was taken up by a biography copy-pasted from elsewhere. And the photo that went with the story seems to have been taken from a story in the Romanian media about an accident there:
Trafic blocat pe E 85, în județul Vrancea, în urma unui accident grav
Accident deosebit de grav pe E 85, în județul Vrancea, în localitatea Haret. Două persoane au murit, iar alte patru au fost rănite grav în urma unei coliziuni între două autoturisme. Circulaţia rutieră este oprită pe ambele sensuri. Inspectoratul pentru Situații de Urgență a declanșat planul roșu de intervenție.
That would explain why the firemen in the picture have the Romanian word "Pompieri" on their uniforms instead of "Pompiers" which one would expect in Paris, France.
No other news outlets reported on the news, and the site itself seems to have been registered in Russia about two months ago.
Don't fall for this hoax!
