For Some Reason, Everyone Thinks Gene Wilder Just Died Again

Celebrity deaths always seem so difficult to take as they are not only loved by friends and family but millions of fans around the world. People grow up with their work on the big screen, their music, or their play on the field, and it’s hard to know that they’re actually gone. Well, people have been mourning the loss of beloved actor Gene Wilder on social media lately, but they are failing to realize that he’s been dead for three years.

Wilder is one of those that virtually everyone knows whether they are 80-years-old or just 18-years-old. He was the iconic chocolate giant in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He led a blind Richard Pryor around while portraying a blind man in See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Wilder was a mad scientist with a hilarious train of thought in Young Frankenstein.

On August 29, 2016, Gene Wilder passed away at the age of 83 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The comedic genius was loved around the world and it was just as hard for his fans to take the death as it was for those who personally knew him.

With the three-year anniversary of Wilder’s death just passing at the end of last month, many have been posting tributes to him and his memory. Unfortunately for some, they don’t realize that he’s been dead for three years and they are posting articles on social media as if he has just recently died.

This happens more often than people think with celebrity deaths as they see someone share an article posted about someone who died. Many times, the article is old and the person posting it didn’t read the piece and end up thinking it is brand new information.

From there, it is a domino effect in that others begin sharing that post and others share it again and all of a sudden, everyone thinks a celebrity just died. That has been the case with Gene Wilder over the course of the past week and it has made a lot of people sad all over again.

Matters were not helped on Friday when the official YouTube channel of the Los Angeles Times posted a video. The video is less than a minute old and dated September 6, 2019, and simply titled “Gene Wilder dies at 83.”

So, it’s not like the LA Times is helping with any confusion going around on social media as it never details that he died in 2016.

Gene Wilder is a true icon and will always go down as one of the greatest actors to ever appear on the big or small screen. His death in 2016 was hard for millions of people to handle, and it’s still not easy for anyone to accept that he’s gone. For those who didn’t realize that he was actually dead, though, they are just experiencing his death for the first time and sharing it on social media for everyone to become sad all over again.