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A BBC Reporter Tweeted That the Queen Had Died and It Caused Chaos Online

By John Boone
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First things first, Queen Elizabeth II is the realest.

Second things second, she’s not dead. At 89 years young, Her Royal Highness is still very much alive. Despite what was tweeted out by BBC journalist Ahmen Khawaja, who is a reporter for BBC Urdu, earlier today.

To be fair, Khawaja does include in her Twitter bio, “All views strictly my own.” But we’re not sure if tweeting that the Queen had been hospitalized counts as a personal opinion:

Twitter

Khawaja followed up with a tweet saying the Queen DIED (via NBC News):

Twitter

Khawaja then seemingly clarified with a tweet saying, “False alarm to the Queen’s death. She is being treated at King Edward 7th hospital. Statement due shortly.” Then she deleted all of those tweets and tweeted, “phone left unattended at home. Silly prank, Apologies for upsetting anyone!”

Then she deleted that too.


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But not before other news organizations, like German newspaper BILD, published reports about the Queen’s “health scare” and sourced BBC.

Even a CNN affiliate jumped on the death scare:

In the end, Khawaja tweeted this of the incident:


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So what the bloody hell happened? And was the Queen actually hospitalized?

The BBC later explained, “During a technical rehearsal for an obituary, tweets were mistakenly sent from the account of a BBC journalist saying that a member of the royal family had been taken ill. The tweets were swiftly deleted and we apologize for any offence.”

(Which is ignoring the part where she said the Queen died, but whatever.)

According to The Guardian, the BBC has four people worthy of this “category-one obit” treatment: The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and the Duke of Cambridge (aka Prince William).

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What may have ultimately been an unfortunate coincidence is that the Queen actually did go to the hospital today. For a check-up.

"I can confirm that the queen this morning attended her annual medical check-up at the King Edward VII's hospital in London," Buckingham Palace revealed in a statement. "This was a routine, pre-scheduled appointment. The Queen has now left the hospital."

Long live the Queen. (But in all seriousness, she’s going to out-live us all. You know that, right?)

On a happier note, get to know the newest -- and cutest -- member of the royal family, Princess Charlotte:

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