Bill Bailey has revealed his worried family and friends rang him to check he was okay after the BBC incorrectly announced he was dead.
The comedian said there was an announcement from the broadcaster’s official Twitter account after a DJ of the same name died. Bailey, 59, admitted it was ‘weird’ seeing his photo posted along with an obituary and seeing people’s responses to his death. Speaking about the mishap on the Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake podcast, he said: “I was announced as dead on Twitter a few years ago, the BBC announced my death.
“They said ‘much loved comedian Bill Bailey dies..’. It was weird to read it on my phone going ‘oh bloody hell’. I had friends and family phone me up - I don’t know what they thought they were going to get on the end of the phone. 'Are you alright’, well I’m not dead.”
He continued: “There was a DJ in Kentucky called Bill Bailey and he died. He died, because of the time difference, it was middle of the night here, so some BBC staffer just half asleep or something, just on the nod, suddenly woke up and saw in a bleary night of sleep ‘Bill Bailey died’ and panicked.
“I guess there’s a ‘Bill Bailey’s dead’ button at the BBC and it generated this photograph and a little obituary, quickly realised it wasn’t me, but of course it’s too late and somebody had already screenshotted it.
“The thing that intrigued me was there was 2,300 likes - which I guess is people going ‘oh he’s dead, not wahey yay’. Then I got a sad face emoji from The One Show.
“It was all reasonably positive, ‘oh that’s a shame’.”
Bailey tweeted a response to the BBC's blunder at the time in which he said: "Just FYI I am not dead so this will not affect the Stevenage gigs".
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