Did the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony feature a "figure of death holding a NEEDLE"? No, that's not true: The "figure of death" was actually a puppet of Lord Voldemort, the villain from the "Harry Potter" book series. Lord Voldemort is holding a magic wand, not a needle. Lead Stories could not find any evidence that the London Olympics had included a "figure of death."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on April 26, 2024. The caption read:
🗣️ The opening ceremony of the #Olympics in #London featured a giant figure of death holding a NEEDLE, with doctors and nurses dancing like zombies around children in hospital beds. But don't worry it's all one big coincidence. Carry on people Nothing to see here...
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Apr 30 13:16:18 2024 UTC)
The post implies that the COVID-19 pandemic, although years away from 2012, was known in advance, along with the subsequent advent of COVID hospitalizations and vaccines.
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Google News, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the Facebook claim (archived here).
According to the Olympic website, the figure was Lord Voldemort from the "Harry Potter" fantasy series of books and movies:
The ceremony then paid tribute to Britain's National Health Service and its amazing body of children's literature ... a scene of children in hospital beds was overrun by literary villains including ... Voldemort ...
A YouTube video showing a broadcast of the 2012 ceremony showed the character of Lord Voldemort, animated by puppeteers, rising while holding an object that appears to be its magic wand, at 50:23. Evidence of this can be seen in the screenshot below:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Tue Apr 30 14:10:20 2024 UTC)
Here is a closer look at Lord Voldemort's wand from the "official" online shop for Harry Potter merchandise.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to COVID-19 are here.
