Actor Daniel Radcliffe says he was amused by the coronavirus hoax about him on Twitter.
The Harry Potter star became the first celebrity to become a coronavirus Twitter hoax when a tweet from a fake BBC News account falsely claimed that the actor had tested positive for coronavirus.
In an interview with Vulture, the Harry Potter star said that he had been in hair and make-up before a play performance when the artist broke the fake news to him, reports eonline.com.
He said, "The hair and makeup artist, a lovely guy called Rob, turned around with a sort of knowing smile, and he was like, 'You've got coronavirus'. I was like, 'What?! I'm sure I don't. I just did a play'. And he said, 'Yeah, my niece just texted me. She said, ‘Oh, yeah, that dude's got coronavirus'. It was very much like, 'Watch yourself. I don't know if you should work with this guy. He's got coronavirus'."
The actor said he was amused by the rumour.
"I was immediately like, quite amused by it. It's not the first time I've had something crazy written about me. I don't ever think there's been a rumour about me that was so topical, that was pivoting off the news. Most of it before has been random stuff that British newspapers have said. So this one was slightly odd. But then you end up having to text a bunch of people saying, 'No, I don't have coronavirus, I'm fine'," said the star.
Soon, Radcliffe, who is not on social media, realised how far the claim had spread.
"It wasn't really until the next day, until I did a round of phone interviews, that it was like, 'This has been taken seriously by more people than it should have'. I spent the whole morning just having to tell journalists that I did not have coronavirus. And it was maybe only a day later that Tom Hanks said he had it," he said.
He also addressed how the whole conversation around coronavirus shifted.
"I also wonder if someone would do that now. Even in the relatively short time since that happened, the gravity of the situation has sunken in a bit more. I don't think people would be so quick to make something up," he said, adding: "Erin (Darke) saw the article about the people who'd done the hoax, and they said they wanted to make a point in how easy it is to get people to believe things that aren't true. I feel like we've got that point. Everyone is all too aware of that."
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