Canadian rapper Classified tweeted on Saturday about a dated and debunked conspiracy theory involving late musicians Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington and Avicii.
The 42-year-old, whose real name is Lucas Boyd, shared a screen grab of a social media post claiming the three men, as well as TV host Anthony Bourdain, had been involved in a documentary, The Silent Children – “a film about child trafficking, and the project was canceled after their deaths. They all died within a year.”
The implication, of course, is that all four men – who took their own lives – were murdered to prevent the documentary from being made. The conspiracy theory relies on the preposterous assumption that investigators and coroners in four jurisdictions and three countries – the U.S., Oman and France – falsified their reports to cover up a crime.
Classified tweeted: “Is this real? If so. Why is no one taking (sic) about it except for a couple of Facebook posts.”
Sadly, a lot of people have talked about the conspiracy theory in thousands of social media posts and memes since 2017, when a fake news website posted a fabricated report about the deaths of Bennington and Cornell. A year later, a different fake news site posted fabricated reports about Avicii and Bourdain.
Notably, none of the men were involved with The Silent Children, a documentary that was to be directed by Dean Karr and produced by Lisa Beane and Arthur Gorson. A website seeking funding for the project no longer exists.
Among those who commented on Classified’s tweet was Canadian singer Shawn Desman who tweeted: “Woah.”
Classified later deleted his tweet. “Don’t think it’s real," he wrote. "Someone just told me.”