Paul Bocuse Death Hoax Takes Twitter By Storm

Over the weekend, the rumor of the death of celebrated French chef Paul Bocuse swirled on Twitter. This may very well be the first high-profile chef Twitter death hoax. The only source of the news was the website Necropedia that runs "anticipated" obituaries, but the fake news of Bocuse's death still landed on his Wikipedia page until it was corrected and then locked down for "persistent vandalism."

A few people got suckered in to tweeting some form of "RIP Bocuse," including cheftestapant Eli Kirshtein and chef Scott Conant (they have both since deleted their tweets). Also cookbook author Paula Wolfert?. Andrew Zimmern was fooled (after learning it was a hoax, called Necropedia "a bunch of fuckwits"). David Chang tweeted: "instead of bad bocuse rumors lets ruminate on this http://picsofaznstakingpicsoffood.tumblr.com."

A bunch of people have confirmed that Bocuse is alive, including writer Elizabeth Auerbach ? (she tweeted "Paul Bocuse is alive and well, I've just spoken with the restaurant. They're very unhappy about the rumour on Twitter about his death."), chef Gavin Kaysen (who tweeted "Chef Paul Bocuse is alive and well, the rumors need to stop, they are insulting to he and his family"), and the website Fine Dining Lovers (they tweeted "We can confirm after speaking with his restaurant that the legendary Paul Bocuse has not died"). French pastry chef Pierrick Boyer took to Facebook: "Happy to have confirmation from Monsieur Paul Bocuse's closest ones that's he is alive, shows the importance of only trusting reliable sources."

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