Was the death of Donald Trump predicted to occur on March 13, 2023, in an episode of "The Simpsons"? No, that's not true: This is not a real episode of "The Simpsons" but an edited hoax. Additional material was spliced into a section of the real episode 18 of Season 26, titled "Peeping Mom." This "Simpsons" episode did not feature Donald Trump in the story and it did not predict his death -- whoever did make this trolling prediction was wrong. At the time of writing, July 3, 2023, Donald Trump is alive.
The two-minute, 11-second video post with a @komar.tiktok watermark was published on Facebook on June 13, 2023, with the caption:
REMEMBER.13TH MARCH TODAY.DONALD IN QUESTION ICINGSIMPSOBS TELLING YOU
SIMPSONS PREDICT THE DEAT* OF DONALD
TRUMP FOR MARCH 13 2023
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jul 3 16:02:17 2023 UTC)
A 4:27 minute clip of the relevant portion of the original "Simpsons" episode is posted on YouTube. The characters who appear in the full episode are listed on the episode's simpsonswiki.com page. Donald Trump is not included in this episode. The video is no longer publicly visible on the @komar.tiktok channel but was published on YouTube on September 9, 2022, months before the clock ran out on this hoax prediction. The video was republished on Facebook on June 13, 2023, months after the March 3, 2023 prediction deadline had passed.
The prediction outlined in the video is not only outdated and fabricated, but vague as well. It requires interpretation to even develop a "prediction conspiracy" from the material provided. At 0:42 seconds into the @komar.tiktok video the date March 13 -- or "3/13" is derived from reading the reverse side of the letters FIE from the Springfield sign after all the other letters have fallen. The date 3/13 does not show in the original clip (as pictured below) or figure in the plot. At 0:45 seconds into the YouTube segment, the letters FIE are only intended to spell the word "fie." Bart Simpson tells his friend Milhouse to look up the meaning of the word. Milhouse checks his phone and responds:
(Image source: Facebook Screenshot taken on Mon Jul 03 17:42:29 2023 UTC)
The material which appears in this hoax prediction episode comes from at least three different sources. Most of the animated footage comes from season 26, episode 18, entitled, "Peeping Mom."
The scene of Donald Trump in the oval office originally appeared (below left) in an August 20, 2019, Donald Trump short entitled, "West Wing Story" which was only released on YouTube. This skit was a parody of the musical, "West Side Story," and originally the framed picture Trump is holding is a picture of the founding members of "The Squad" -- four female members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.
(Image source: Lead Stories composite image made with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Screenshots taken on Mon Jul 03 17:42:29 2023 UTC)
The image of Trump in a casket (example post pictured far right above), which was substituted for "The Squad" in the picture frame, is not a real "Simpsons" cartoon image. It is a hoax image done in the style of "Simpsons" cartoonist Matt Groening, and appears to have been inspired by a real "Simpsons" scene of Sideshow Bob's funeral. On February 3, 2017, YouTube channel Badabun posted about the false prediction and image of Trump in a coffin, finding it had originated on 4chan. Lead Stories published a fact check about this coffin image on October 2, 2020.
Lead Stories has debunked several other fake "Simpsons" predictions. Those fact checks can be found here.
