Did actor Jean-Claude Van Damma die of a heart attack? No, that's not true: the story of his death was made up by a website with a history of publishing death hoaxes.
The story originated from an article published by chanteur-news-fr.info on January 27, 2019 titled "« Jean-Claude Van Damme est mort » : l'acteur victime d'une crise cardiaque ..." (archived here) which opened:
Jean-Claude Van Damme est mort aujourd'hui à l'hôpital pour une crise cardiaque . J'ai appelé l'ambulance à 7:15 .
L 'ambulance a amené l'acteur à l'hôpital mais il était trop tard .
Il est mort d'une crise cardiaque à 8:20 .
Translation:
Jean-Claude Van Damme died today in hospital because of a heart attack. I called the ambulance at 7:15.
The ambulance took the actor to hospital but it was too late.
He died of a heart attack at 8:20.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
« Jean-Claude Van Damme est mort » : l'acteur victime d'une crise cardiaque ...
FR - NEWS ONLY
Most real news stories list an author and this one was published anonymously. This is important since the author claims to be the one who called the ambulance making it much harder to verify.
But no reliable news outlets made any mention of the story and Van Damme's official website and Twitter account make no mention of his death.
We wrote about chanteur-news-fr.info before: the site has a habbit of publishing death hoaxes:
- Fake News: Singer Maître Gims NOT Dead After Road Accident In Paris
- Fake News: Belgian Singer Stromae NOT Dead In Paris Road Accident
According to WHOIS information the site appears to be Russian in origin so it is probably not the best source of information about Franco-Belgo-American pop culture:
Domain Information
Domain:chanteur-news-fr.info
Registrar:Limited Liability Company "Registrar of domain names REG.RU"
Registered On:2018-08-19
Expires On:2019-08-19
Updated On:2018-10-18
Status:clientTransferProhibited
Name Servers:cpsoneone.iphoster.net
cpsonetwo.iphoster.net
Registrant Contact
Organization:Privacy Protection
Country:RU
