A few days back news went viral that a Canadian actor died in South Korea due to complications developed post his plastic surgery. The news piece also said that the actor apparently had 12 plastic surgeries to look like K-Pop singer Park Jimin.
The news was first reported by the British news media outlet Daily Mail and then picked up by several national and international websites. It was also reported that the actor spent a staggering $220,000 on these surgeries and died of an infection developed after jaw implant surgery.
It was also reported that actor Colucci went through several surgeries as he was insecure about his looks and wanted to transform into the look-a-like of Park Jimin to take part in a reality TV show in South Korea. It was also mentioned that the actor's jaw implants had to be removed and that he knew it could be life-threatening. He still decided to go ahead with this, and during surgery developed complications after which he was intubated and died a few hours later.
However, now it turns out that the news was not true. There was no confirmation of the death of a Canadian actor in South Korea, Variety reported. As per the reports no Canadian actor with the name Saint Von Colucci ever existed neither does his publicist Eric Blake. The news was sourced from a company called Hype through a bot called Nylas which was sent in the form of a press release to the journalists.
Later it was found that there were many inconsistencies in those releases. No Canadian actor with the name Saint Von Colucci was found on social media. Generally, artists are present on almost all popular social media including Instagram, Twitter, etc. Saint Von was said to be the son of Brazilian model Adriana Lima and a hedge fund CEO named Geovani Lamas, who is just 10 years old. Even there is no hospital by the name mentioned in the release where the actor was believed to have died.
What confirmed it, even more, is that the South Korean media couldn't find any police report of his death due to a plastic surgery blunder. Meanwhile, Daily Mail Online, the news outlet that first reported the story, took down its article without any explanation or retraction notice.
Now a leading media group found that even Von Colucci's life story appears to have been fabricated with images of him made using AI software. Even Hype's website is said to be created a few days before the news of said death.
