STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Lawyer: False

Did a post on Facebook confirm that actor Chuck Norris died in a "fatal car accident" in January 2025? No, that's not true: Norris' attorney told Lead Stories that the post was "not correct" and that he had spoken with Norris the day this article was written. Images seen in the post on Facebook had been digitally altered to appear as proof.

The claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on January 11, 2025. The caption read:

Officially confirmed... 10 minutes ago. Chuck Norris, he has been confirmed as...Read more:

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jan 15 15:54:07 2025 UTC)

The images with the post show Norris, a vehicle on fire, a text overlay reading, "BREAKING NEWS FATAL CAR ACCIDENT" and two people crying over a casket with a picture of Norris in a picture frame. It is implied that Norris passed away in the "fatal car accident."

The creator posted in the comments a link to an article from americanstory.co.uk headlined, "Breaking News: Actor Chuck Norris said goodbye, with his last regrets/ Goodbye to Chuck Norris..." (archived here). The article does not explicitly state that he has died and does not mention a "fatal car accident" that was mentioned in the Facebook post. The website americanstory.co.uk does not appear reliable as it doesn't list its ownership or anything else about itself.

Lead Stories reached out to Norris' attorney, Michael Forshey, and in a January 15, 2025, email, he debunked the claim:

That is not correct. I personally spoke with Mr. Norris last night and this morning.

A reverse image search (archived here) of the two people crying over a casket with a picture frame on top resulted in images that did not include Norris. The oldest example we found of the original image's use was a 2004 article (archived here) from Chinadaily.com.cn titled, "Russia buries its kids as fury mounts." Evidence of this is below:

(Source: China Daily screenshot taken on Thu Jan 16 17:00:32 2025 UTC)

Norris' official website did not post an announcement declaring his death.

A Google News search of keywords did not result in any reputable media outlets confirming Norris' death (archived here).

At the time of writing, Snopes had also reviewed this claim.

More Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning Chuck Norris are here. More Lead Stories fact checks of claims about sudden celebrity deaths can be found here.