Blog Noticiasrge (noticiasrge.blogspot.com) published a fake report on April 23 claiming American musician Dave Grohl was hospitalized for pneumonia and has tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
This site’s claims are unsupported. No legitimate news organization has reported on the Foo Fighters frontman recently getting sick, much less contracting COVID-19.
Its source — a “Bild newspaper” — also lends no truth to Noticiasrge’s claim.
The German tabloid had previously featured him but the last story it published on the former Nirvana drummer was of him falling off a stage in January 2019 during a concert in Las Vegas. Grohl was briefly mentioned in three more stories that March, June and August, but nothing about him being sick.
Another claim lacking proof, the site said Grohl was in Russia “for a solo project” before returning to America a month prior to the post’s publishing date.
A look at various social media sites and queries on search engine operators does not turn up results placing Grohl in Russia recently. Where online records placed him instead was in Hawaii, performing from his home for an iHeartRadio Living Room concert on March 29.
His most recent public appearance was in an April 27 episode of American late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he serenaded an emergency nurse via an online call as a tribute to frontliners. On May 13, Entertainment Weekly published an interview with him where they discussed what he was doing during the community quarantine. There was no mention of the musician contracting the virus in both instances.
Noticiasrge’s fake report used as its thumbnail a screengrab of Grohl from his July 2018 interview with American talk show CBS Sunday Morning. The logo of CNN was edited onto the photo.
The false claim was published the same day a rendition of Foo Fighters’ song Times Like These featuring various artists, including Grohl, was released by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Radio One for the benefit of British citizens “significantly affected by the COVID-19 crisis.”
Social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle detected Noticiasrge’s fabricated post being shared by several Facebook accounts on May 20, potentially reaching over 1.1 million people. Three of the story’s biggest traffic generators in FB are groups Guitar Effect Pedals Enthusiast and Guitar Players on Facebook and Filipino music fanpage Noisy Daisy. A netizen asked in the comments section of Noisy Daisy’s post: “Any strong legit big source?”
The hoax on Grohl circulated in the Philippines and Brazil, according to Facebook. Noticiasrge, which has been publishing stories since January 2019, carries stories mostly about Nirvana and other posts written in Spanish.
(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
