Did music artist Aliaune Thiam, also known as Akon, confirm that music artist Michael Jackson is still alive as of June 11, 2024, as claimed in a social media post? No, that's not true: In 2019, Lead Stories documented Jackson's official death certificate, which confirmed that the music artist died in 2009. Also, the article linked to the post making the claim is clickbait, as it does not mention any details that pertain to the claim that Jackson is still alive.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on June 11, 2024. It began:
Michael Jackson is ALIVE and secretly preparing for a MASSIVE COMEBACK, pal Akon confirmed!!! His producer & stylist agreed too. Full story in the first comment
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jun 12 22:24:57 2024 UTC)
The link in the comment section of this post leads to an article titled "Why Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley Never Had Children" (archived here) on the website sagenews.site. The article shows the same image as the social media post, with the same text reading "MICHAEL JACKSON IS ALIVE PAL AKON CONFIRMED!!" but there is no other mention of this claim or anything pertaining to it in the rest of the article.
Lead Stories previously debunked a claim that Jackson's body was cremated and made into necklaces. The official death certificate documented by Lead Stories Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke not only confirmed that Jackson died on June 25, 2009, but also confirmed that his body was embalmed and buried in a cemetery.
A 2011 Washington Post article titled, "Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's doctor, found guilty of involuntary manslaughter," reported that "Jackson died in June 2009 of cardiac arrest caused by acute propofol intoxication."
A 2013 Reuters article titled "AEG Warns Of 'Ugly Stuff' In Michael Jackson Wrongful Death Trial" also reported that the singer "died in Los Angeles in June 2009.
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Google News, which is visible here, and found no credible documents or further reporting to corroborate the claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks that mention Michael Jackson can be found here.
