Nollywood actor Genevieve Nnaji is dead, claims a post published on Facebook in Nigeria on 7 July 2022.
Nnaji is a Nigerian actor, producer and director. Her movies include Lionheart (2018), Road to Yesterday (2015) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2013).
The post reads: “Sad News: Genevieve Nnaji is dead after battling drug addiction.”
It includes three photos. One photo shows a woman seated beside a girl in a hospital. The second and third photos are of Nnaji. In one of the photos, she is lying on a hospital bed.
Nigerian celebrities are frequently targeted by false rumours about their deaths.
Could the same be true of 43-year-old Nnaji? We checked.
‘No evidence Nnaji is dead’
A reverse image search of the first photo revealed that it was initially posted on 17 February 2011. The woman in the photo is Rukky Sanda, another Nollywood actor. Sanda had visited the children’s cancer ward at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and the Red Cross orphanage.
The second photo of Nnaji lying on a hospital bed was posted on several Youtube channels when rumours began circulating on social media that she had been hospitalised in the US due to mental illness.
On 11 May 2022, Nnaji shared a video of herself painting on Instagram stories and hasn’t posted since.
There have been no reports in the mainstream media of Nnaji’s death, which would be expected if it were true.
The Actors Guild of Nigeria would also have released a statement on her death. Other Nollywood actors would also have commented on her death if it were true.
There is no evidence that Nnaji is dead.
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