Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Legendary Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has passed away.
Fact
No, the viral video is edited by combining unrelated clips from Bollywood.
A one-minute video purportedly showing Bollywood stars arriving to pay their last respect after veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan passed away has gone viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @princess_9962 posted a one-minute long video carrying several visuals of Bollywood artists. One visual shows a lady fainting, another clip shows Shahrukh Khan getting out of his car, another clip shows Abhisekh Bachchan in somber mood. The video also shows a clip of Sanjay Dutt leaving a place after exchanging affection to some people. The video also carries photos of Amitabh Bachchan. Text superimposed on the video reads, “RIP Amitabh Bachchan. Born 16 June 1937. Died at age 82. ” A melancholic tune is played in the background. Scrolling text on the screen reads, “ You can see all Bollywood superstars came to the funeral and how much asad are they. This is the reality of this world whoever came to this world has to go one day. Only a son knows the pain of losing his father you can see how sad is Abheshak Bahchan. Whenever I see a funeral I remember the words of Sylvester Stallone he said about life. R.I.P.”
The video posted on November 7 has garnered 62.2k likes, 6767 users have shared it and 127 people have commented until the last count. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity, Newschecker first looked up the latest news of Amitabh Bachchan and found several news articles regarding Bachchan regretting inviting his son to his popular show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC)16. An article, dated Nov 15, published on India Express online, reported that the official social media account of Sony Entertainment Television shared a promo featuring Abhishek Bachchan in the hot seat opposite his father. Further, we checked the verified X (Formerly Twitter) handle of Amitabh Bachchan and found several news posts.
Had the claim been true it would have definitely hit the news headlines. But we found no such news.
We, then, closely observed the video and noticed that the video contained eight different footages. We, then, split the video into several key-frames and ran reverse searches on them.
A Google reverse search on a frame led us to a video, dated December 27, 2022, published on the NDTV India. On checking the video whose frame exactly matched the clip used in the viral video, we found that clip actually showed Bollywood actor Tunisha Sharma’s mother fainting during the funeral of her daughter.
A reverse search on the third clip showing Shahrukh Khan led us to a video, dated May 27, 2019, published on the YouTube channel named Bollywood Helpline. The video frame also matched the footage carried in the viral video. On checking the video, we found that the clip actually showed Shahrukh Khan arriving at the funeral of Ajay Devgn.
Further, we ran a reverse search on a frame showing Abhishek Bachchan which led us to a video, dated December 14, 2017, posted on the YouTube channel named ViralBollywood. The video frame from 0.14-minute resembled the fourth clip used in the viral video. The video title reads, “Abhishek Bachchan at Director Neeraj Vora’s funeral.”
On digging further by using several clues found so far, we came across another video, dated May 27, 2019, posted on the YouTube channel named Home Bollywud. The video frame from 0-30-minute exactly matched the eighth clip of the viral video showing Sanjay Dutt. The video also contained footage resembling the clip of Shahrukh Khan. The video title reads “SRK [Shahrukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt and others arrive to provide emotional support to Ajay Devgn.”
Thus, our findings clearly show that Amitabh Bachchan is alive.
Conclusion
No, Amitabh Bachchan is alive and active on his social media. The viral video is edited by compiling unrelated footage from Bollywood.
Result: False
Sources
NDTV, Dec 27, 2022
Bollywoodhelpline/YouTube , May 27, 2019
ViralBollywood Dec 14, 2017
India Express, Nov 15, 2024
Home Bollywud /YouTube, May 27, 2019
Amitabh Bachchan /X (formerly Twitter)
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
