Well, the “Died Suddenly” Twitter account is at it again. The account hasn’t exactly been “like a virgin” when it’s come to posting news about celebrity deaths and health crises and then trying to somehow link them to the Covid-19 vaccine. Therefore, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that this account tweeted the following about Madonna on June 28 at 4:44 pm: “BREAKING: Madonna has been rushed to a New York City hospital after being found unresponsive. The pop icon, 64, was discovered at a residence on Saturday before being admitted to the ICU where she was intubated overnight.” That first part of the post was consistent with reports from real news outlets. But then came the second part of the post: “Madonna donated $1.1 Million dollars to Covid Vaccine research, and made claims that the vaccine should be ‘mandatory like gun control’ because it ‘saves lives.’” Umm, what exactly did that second part have to do with the first part?
Let’s see, the “Died Suddenly” tweet-post just happened to leave out what Guy Oseary, Madonna’s manager, had posted on Instagram on Wednesday—that Madonna had had a “serious bacterial infection,” as I covered for Forbes. Yeah, not including that fact seemed to be a rather “serious” omission on the part of “Died Suddenly.” In Oseary’s post, the manager didn’t mention vaccines in any way. Not unless he misspelled “Covid-19 vaccines” as “serious bacterial infection.” In fact, no official reputable sources to date have indicated that Covid-19 vaccines were in any way linked to Madonna’s condition. Yet, that didn’t stop the “Died Suddenly” account from trying to put them together like melons and milk—meaning the fruit and the dairy product.
The “Died Suddenly” account didn’t stop there, though. Just four minutes later at 4:48 pm, the “Died Suddenly” account tweet-replied to its initial tweet with: “Amazingly, the Google algorithm is drastically changing, to try and paint the picture that Madonna was some huge ‘antivaxxer.’ The truth is, she was VERY pro-vaccine, and even advocated for it to be mandatory. See through the deception and lies, and don’t be manipulated.”
Well, that’s amazing. Is Google now somehow involved in this whole Madonna thing? This “Died Suddenly” tweet reply included screenshots of the following three headlines from 2020 and 2021 about Madonna that didn’t exactly paint her a being “VERY pro-vaccine”: “Madonna claims there is ‘no debate or discussion’ about vaccines because of ‘cancel culture’” from The Independent, “Madonna terrified of being cancelled over COVID vaccination beliefs” from the Toronto Sun, and “Madonna censured on Instagram after posting bizarre COVID vaccine theory video” from 7NEWS. Hmm, those are real links to real articles that detailed some of the real controversial things that Madonna had really said back then. So, where exactly are the deception and lies? Did this so-called drastically changing Google algorithm actually help find articles that really exist? So who exactly is trying to manipulate whom?
Then several hours later at 9:44 pm, “Died Suddenly” tweeted yet again about Madonna: “Madonna confirmed had 2 doses of the Moderna Vaccines. She was hospitalized early this week and intubated. Madonna has also openly supported mandated vaccinations.” Like the first tweet about Madonna from “Died Suddenly”, this one didn’t specifically say that Covid-19 vaccination had led to Madonna being hospitalized and intubated, maybe because the “Died Suddenly” account didn’t have any, you know, real evidence of such a connection. But once again it mentioned Covid-19 vaccination along with her hospitalization.
Some other social media account were a little more direct is trying to suggest that vaccines were somehow involved with Madonna’s hospitalization. For example, look at what @dom_lucre posted: “Please pray for Madonna while she recovers in the ICU room after being found unresponsive for what some reports are saying appears to be vaccine related which would be unfortunate if true since Madonna was one of the loudest supporters of the Covid-19 vaccine.” This tweet said “some reports are saying” but didn’t specify which reports exactly and who might have written those reports. It’s sort of like high school when a bully says, “Some reports say that you suck.” Oh yeah, as Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist at BBC Verify tweet-summarized, “Anti-vaccine influencers are at it again,” in the following tweet:
If you are looking for real, accurate health information, maybe the “Died Suddenly” social media account is not your best bet. It was ostensibly started to promote a film entitled, you got it, Died Suddenly that premiered back in November 2022 on Twitter. Yes, I said premiered on Twitter, which can be kind of like saying, “The movie premiered in a bathroom stall.” After all, the bar for posting a film on Twitter isn’t exactly that high. As I covered for Forbes back then, the film pushed a lot of unfounded conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines. Heck a website bearing the movie trailer claimed that the film will “present the truth about the greatest ongoing mass genocide in human history.”
Madonna is the latest celebrity to fall victim to the “blame it all on Covid-19 vaccines” social media campaigns. Anti-vaccination social media accounts have tried to pin the deaths of Raquel Welch, Jeff Beck, David Crosby, and others on Covid-19 vaccines despite the lack of that little thing called evidence. And since social media platforms like Twitter really don’t seem to be doing anything about social media accounts that are blatantly spreading misinformation, you can expect even more such blame campaigns in the future. Madonna may have sung, “Pappa Don’t Preach.” But these anonymous social media accounts sure are doing a lot of preaching.