- Slater Vance has joined the TikTok trend of users lying to their parents about celebrity deaths.
- He later apologized for lying about the death of Bassett’s Black Panther co-star, Michael B. Jordan.
- Many social media users have called the trend offensive.
This was another TikTok trend that went too far.
That’s what 16-year-old Slater Vance learned last week after using her famous parents, actors Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, to attend.
This trend involves users pretending that celebrities (usually celebrities loved by their parents) have died and pranking family members in front of the camera. The trend grew in popularity during the holiday season, when families gathered and children gathered at home for the holidays, and TikTok users briefly bluffed in living rooms, kitchens, and grocery stores around the world.
As of January 1st, the hashtag “celebritydeathprank” has over 174 million views on the app, nearly as many for “deadcelebrityprank”.
Slater Vance I participated in Pretending to read the news that actor Michael B. Jordan had died at the age of 35, Bassett clearly reacted with shock and distress.
Social media users quickly realized that Jordan was actually a colleague of Bassett’s. They co-starred together in 2018’s Black His Panther and its sequel. Another of Bassett’s young Black Panther co-stars, Chadwick Boseman, died of colon cancer in 2020. The news also came out of nowhere to the cast and crew of the film.
Elder Vance also works with Jordan, and the two executives produce AMC’s show 61st Street.
Vance has since removed the video from TikTok and posted an apology for making the video.
“I apologize for being complicit in this harmful trend,” he said Saturday. “My apologies directly to all of Michael Jordan’s family and to the extended family that he is my idol. It is completely disrespectful to join a fad like this.”
as much as you want enjoy and keep sharing In the video, some social media users, including Grammy-winner Phineas O’Connell, were prophesying about the trend’s potential to go south like Vance.
O’Connell, who often collaborates with his sister Billie Eilish, wrote in one of his TikTok videos, “I laughed once at a video of you telling your parents that someone died when it wasn’t. “That’s mean. Your parents show weakness for a second and you’re laughing at them. That’s mean. Stop it.”
Twitter users say Slater Vance’s New Year’s Eve TikTok may have killed the viral prank that saw the names of Jon Bon Jovi, Oprah Winfrey, and Cher taken to waste.
“Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance put an end to the trend on TikTok and we thank them,” wrote one user. Said.
Slater Vance said he hopes others can learn from him.
“I acknowledge this mistake and I want everyone who uses social media as a tool and source of entertainment to truly understand that their actions can have consequences beyond yours. I hope this will serve as a lesson for you.
