Jaden Smith Death Hoax Exploited By HollywoodLife

Jaden Smith is alive and well. But HollywoodLife is exploiting a death hoax about the teen star, posting THREE stories about him being dead.

On Sunday morning, the first of these clickbait pieces was posted with the headline, “Jaden Smith Dead? Reports Surface Claiming The Actor Committed Suicide.” The accompanying story said, “Oh no! Is Jaden Smith dead? The internet sure seems to think he could be!” It wasn’t until more than halfway through the article, five paragraphs down, that the webloid said Smith was alive and the reports were untrue.

That was followed minutes later by a new story with the headline, “Jaden Smith Dead? Fans Freak Out After Hearing He Allegedly Committed Suicide.” The bad blog wrote, “OMG! We were absolutely freaking out when we first heard Jaden Smith allegedly committed suicide, and so were his fans.” In this case, HollywoodLies said in the second paragraph that Smith had not actually died, but still went on to highlight tweets from concerned and misinformed fans.

And then hours later, the site ran its third post with the headline, “Jaden Smith Death Hoax: When Was The Actor Last Seen Alive?” Unnecessarily stoking fears, the piece began, “Jaden Smith fans got the shock of their lives this weekend, when a surprising report claimed the 18-year-old actor allegedly committed suicide. Some demanded answers, while others didn’t know what to make of the situation. For instance — when was Jaden last seen alive?”

Like in the previous story, the outlet noted in the second paragraph that Smith was not dead. But all three articles were designed to initially mislead readers. Instead of directly telling people that Smith was alive and the subject of an untrue death hoax, HollywoodLife crafted not one, not two, but three stories in hopes of gaming Google, so that users searching for “Jaden Smith Dead” would click onto their posts.

HollywoodLies did the same thing just a few days ago with a Miley Cyrus death hoax. The webloid’s continued insistence on exploiting such situations is both gross and insensitive. It’s even more disturbing that these latest stories on Smith and his non-suicide came just after World Suicide Prevention Day. But at this point, Extreme Entertainment has little hope of HollywoodLife growing up and practicing real, respectable journalism.