Did tennis star Serena Williams die following a tragic car crash in Texas in September 2024, as a post on Facebook claimed? No, that's not true: As of September 25, 2024, there was no evidence to suggest that Williams had died. The legendary athlete posted on Instagram after the post about her supposed car crash was published. No major media outlets or law enforcement officials reported that she was involved in a fatal car crash through September 25, 2024. The website that initially published this claim has posted dozens of other dubious celebrity death hoaxes that, when clicked, redirected users to downloadable pop-up blocker products.
The claim originated in a post shared on Facebook on September 23, 2024, (archived here) with a caption that read:
JUST IN: "FAREWELL TO A TENNIS LEGEND": Serena Wi
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Sept 25 07:29:28 2024 UTC)
Using keywords from the claim, Lead Stories searched on Google News, which contains thousands of reliable news and information sites, found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim. The search results can be seen here.
Similarly, as of this publication, no death announcement had been shared on Williams' official social media accounts, including Facebook (archived here), X (archived here), and Instagram.
Between September 23, 2024, the date of her alleged death, according to the post on Facebook, and September 25, 2024, the date of this fact check, Williams shared three posts on her Instagram account. These included a video on September 24 (archived here); a video on September 23 (archived here), and a photo on September 23 (archived here) -- all of which indicate Williams was alive, as of this writing.
(Screenshot of https://www.instagram.com/p/DATNwXrR3g7/?hl=en taken on Wed Sept 25 at 23:10:00 2024 UTC)
The post on Facebook that claimed she had died linked to an article published on September 23, 2024 (archived here). The post's caption followed the article's headline verbatim.
The article was published on the website usalod.com (archived here), which, at the time of this fact check's publication, included other clickbait articles with unsubstantiated claims about celebrities. These included headlines like "Meghan Markle lies DYING underneath crashed car" (archived here) and that Kylie Kelce, the wife of former NFL player Jason Kelce, was "seen in tears after a devastating incident involving their young daughter" (archived here).
Here is a screenshot of images and text as they appeared on the site on September 25, 2024:
(Source: usalod.com screenshot taken on Wed Sept 25 18:03:43 2024 UTC)
When clicked, the website links redirect users to advertisements for computer-product extensions like Universal Ad Blocker and AdBlock 360. The AdBlock 360 ad can be seen below:
(Screenshot taken on Wed Sept 25 at 23:00:00 2024 UTC)
The account posted the article in the public Facebook group "Serena Williams World No.1" and also shared at least eight other links to usalod.com articles that made the same false claims surrounding Williams' alleged death.
(Source: Lead Stories compilation of Facebook screenshots created on Wed Sept 25 18:00:18 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories routinely debunks death hoaxes; a compilation can be found here.
We previously disproved a claim that Serena Williams' sister, Venus Williams, had refused to play tennis against a transgender woman. Our fact checks of other claims about celebrities can be read here.
