French radio station RFI appeared to abruptly end lives of dozens of celebrities, including the UK queen, football icon Pele, and actors Clint Eastwood and Brigitte Bardot, by accidentally publishing wrongful obituaries on Monday.
The station quickly removed the untimely obituaries from its website and partner platforms, apologizing for what was described as "a technical problem".
"A technical problem has resulted in the publication of numerous obituaries on our site. We are mobilized to rectify this major bug and apologize to the people concerned as well as to you who follow us and trust us", RFI tweeted.
🔴 Un problème technique a entraîné la publication de nombreuses nécrologies sur notre site.
— RFI (@RFI) November 16, 2020
Nous sommes mobilisés pour rectifier ce bug majeur et présentons nos excuses aux personnes concernées ainsi qu'à vous qui nous suivez et nous faites confiance.
Among those "sentenced to death" by the radio station were such political figures as former US President Jimmy Carter, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Cuban leader Raúl Castro, as well as cinema icons Clint Eastwood, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and director Roman Polanski.
According to The Guardian, the now deleted obituary of Queen Elizabeth II said: “The United Kingdom awoke an orphan this morning. Buckingham Palace officially announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen, who died of …, turned 94 on 21 April 2020. All Albion laments the disappearance of its sovereign who, at the head of her country since 1952, has constituted the immovable bedrock around which England’s postcolonial history has unfolded, full of sound and fury".
The mistakenly-published obituary contained a plan in the event that the queen died due to the COVID-19 pandemic, offering a text option that said "The coronavirus pandemic that has wrought havoc around the world is no respecter of crowned heads. In England … it has claimed the life of the monarch. The United Kingdom awoke an orphan this morning. Infected by the virus, Queen Elizabeth II, aged 93, did not survive associated pulmonary complications".
Despite RFI's "technical problem", all of the celebrities pronounced "dead" by the website are very much alive.
