News about the death of a 22-year-old Canadian actor Saint Von Colucci who had 12 plastic surgeries to become the lookalike of BTS member Jimin became viral on April 25, but new reports claimed on Friday, April 28, that the news may not be true at all.
The report about the Canadian actor’s death in South Korea due to complications from a series of plastic surgeries was first published by the British media outlet Daily Mail, but they took down the article the day after releasing the report from their website. However, various news organizations in Korea and worldwide shared the news on different platforms.
Netizens tried to investigate the validity of the original report, but they cannot find any evidence to verify its authenticity.
The latest reports revealed that the existence of a person named Saint Von Colucci is questionable, and his alleged publicist Eric Blake is no longer active online or on any social media site. The actor’s only online presence was in an article claiming he will make a K-pop debut with his album “T1K T0K H1GH SCH00L,” but no such album exists on any Korean music streaming platform Melon or Genie.
Also, there are no reports submitted to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Violent Crime Investigation Unit.
The Canadian Embassy in Korea also released a statement about the alleged death. According to the embassy, “Global Affairs Canada is aware of reports of the death of a Canadian in South Korea and is working to confirm the information. No further information is available at this time.”
If the observation of one journalist turned out to be true, the news about the alleged death was a product of AI-generated content with images created by an AI.
Daily Mail has yet to release a statement about the article it published regarding the alleged death.
