This photo has circulated online since 2013 -- almost seven years before Kobe Bryant died
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on February 3, 2020 at 05:55
- 2 min read
- By AFP Philippines
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The photo was published here on Facebook on January 29, 2019, as US officials confirmed Bryant’s body had been identified by fingerprints.
The retired basketball player and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were killed alongside seven others after their helicopter slammed into a rugged hillside in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas, as reported by AFP here on January 29, 2020.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The photo is overlaid with text reading: “Rest up king” and “Rip Kobe Bryant”.
The post’s Tagalog-language caption translates to English as: "This is the corpse of Kobe bryant after the crash and explosion of the helicopter he was in / Rest in peace 'Legendary Mamba'”.
Mamba is a reference to “The Black Mamba”, a nickname Bryant made for and used himself.
The misleading post was shared more than 1,500 times the day it was published; including here, here and here on Facebook, alongside a similar claim.
The claim is false; the photo has circulated online since at least 2013, almost seven years before the crash that killed Bryant.
A reverse image search on Google found this higher resolution version of the photo on Pinterest, published May 11, 2013.
The photo is titled “plastic skeleton, spray foam and paint :)”.
The caption reads: “I needed a burnt body for a project and a real one would be illegal so I made one from a plastic skeleton. I bought a plastic Halloween skeleton and put spray foam on it. Then painted it red and then black. I formed the skeleton with wire.”
Below is a screenshot comparison showing the photo in the misleading post (L) and the photo on Pinterest (R):
The photo was also shared on Reddit here in June 2016 and on Twitter here in May 2019 in discussions about a character that burned to death on the US television series Game of Thrones.
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