After Taiwanese star Barbie Hsu died from pneumonia throughout a trip in Japan over the Lunar New 12 months vacation, social media customers falsely claimed a video shared hundreds of occasions was filmed at her cremation ceremony in Japan. However the clip was taken in a Vietnamese crematorium in December 2024 and has no connection to Hsu.
“Barbie Hsu cremated in Japan at the moment. It makes me cry for her youngsters who have been orphaned,” reads the caption of a Fb video shared on February 4 in a mixture of English and Tagalog.
The 59-second video reveals mourners — together with youngsters — weeping as they watch a brown coffin being despatched right into a cremator.
Overlaid textual content on the video says: “It is heartbreaking, Barbie’s youngsters are nonetheless so younger.”
It was shared over 4,600 occasions earlier than it was deleted and has unfold on Instagram, Threads, YouTube and TikTok alongside related claims.
Screenshot of the false Fb publish, taken February 12, 2025
Taiwanese star Barbie Hsu, who was massively standard throughout Asia for her main function within the 2001 tv drama “Meteor Backyard”, died from a respiratory sickness on February 2. She was 48 (archived hyperlink).
Hsu handed away after creating pneumonia throughout a household journey to Japan over the Lunar New 12 months vacation, the youthful of her two sisters was quoted as saying.
The urn containing Hsu’s ashes was flown again to Taiwan from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on February 5, in line with Singaporean information outlet The Straits Instances (archived hyperlink).
However the circulating video has nothing to do together with her dying.
Taken in Vietnam
Key phrase searches discovered the video surfaced on TikTok on December 29, 2024 — months earlier than Hsu’s dying (archived hyperlink).
On the four-second mark of the TikTok video, Vietnamese textual content might be seen on the tv display above the cremator’s steel door. AFP’s bureau in Vietnam confirmed the title of the deceased on the display didn’t belong to Hsu.
Screenshot comparability of the false video (L) and the December 2024 clip (R)
Subsequent Google reverse picture searches led to related footage posted on TikTok on December 30, 2024 by a person who identifies himself as Pham Son Hai and a employee on the Hoa Lac Vien crematorium in Vietnam (archived hyperlink).
It comprises a number of parts seen within the false video, together with the tv display, the cremation chamber quantity, the casket design and the yellow statuette on the desk.
Screenshot comparability of the false video (L) and the December 2024 TikTok video (R)
When proven the circulating Fb video, Pham informed AFP on February 11: “The person posted the unsuitable factor. That is the Hoa Lac Vien crematorium of Lengthy Thanh, Dong Nai, Vietnam”.
Pictures of the crematorium on Google Maps additionally match parts seen within the false video (archived hyperlink).
Comparability of the false video (L) and a photograph taken in Hoa Lac Vien crematorium in Vietnam (R)
