Avril Lavigne Is Dead Conspiracy
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About
Avril Lavigne Is Dead is a conspiracy theory that Canadian pop singer Avril Lavigne died in 2003 while writing her sophomore album, 2004's Under My Skin, and a doppleganger named Melissa Vandella has been posing as Lavigne ever since.
Origin
The conspiracy was first introduced by Liz at AvrilEstaMuerta,[1] a Brazilian blogspot, on May 6th, 2011. The conspiracy supposes that after Lavigne grew famous following her smash debut album, 2002's Let Go, she hired a doppleganger named Melissa Vandella to distract the paparazzi, and Melissa and Avril became friends. While recording Under My Skin, Avril was found dead in her home, but everyone in the know kept quiet, and Melissa took her place. As evidence, Liz points to images of Lavigne in different times where she has different skin blemishes (shown below).
Furthermore, lyrics from songs such as "Together" and "Nobody's Home" can be interpreted to be references to the switch.
From "Together":
Something is not right
I can feel it inside of me
The truth is not too far away.
You can not deny
When I turn off the lights
When I close my eyes
The truth comes to me and
I'm living a lie
Spread
The story circulated on fan blogs for the following few years until Autumn of 2015. On September 30th, Buzzfeed reporter Ryan Broderick[5] tweeted about the conspiracy theory and AvrilEstaMuerta as a joke. Shortly after, blogs including Noisey[2] wrote about it, bringing the conspiracy to the global stage. The story was then picked up by Gawker,[3] who referenced a since-deleted post on ATRL.net that posited Avril could be alive but in hiding. The Gawker post also shows a screenshot of a Facebook post in which the alleged creator of the conspiracy admits to making it up as a social experiment to demonstrate how easy it is to fabricate a conspiracy. Later that year, Snopes[4] posted about the conspiracy, labeling it false.
2017 Resurgence
On May 12th, 2017, Twitter user @givenchyass[6] brought the conspiracy back into the public eye by tweeting a thread rehashing the evidence. The first tweet of their thread gained over 100,000 retweets (shown below). This sparked widespread media coverage of the theory, as BBC,[7] Mirror,[8] Jezebel,[9] and many more.
Search Interest
External References
[1] AvrilEstaMuerta – SUPPOSES DEATH OF THE CANTORA AVRIL LAVIGNE
[2] Noisey – Investigating the Conspiracy That Says Avril Lavigne Was Killed off and Replaced with an Actress
[3] Gawker – Did Avril Lavigne Die in 2003?: An Internet Conspiracy, Explained
[4] Snopes – Conspiracy Weary
[5] Twitter – Ryan Broderick Tweet
[6] Twitter – @givenchyass thread
[7] BBC – The Avril Lavigne conspiracy theory returns
[8] Mirror – Avril Lavigne 'died' fourteen years ago and fans think they know what happened
[9] Jezebel – How Many Times Do We Have to Go Through This: Avril Lavigne Is Not Dead
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Top Comments
Jellopy
May 15, 2017 at 01:24PM EDT
KnowYourLover
May 15, 2017 at 03:35PM EDT in reply to