Jim Morrison Found Alive in Paris-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Doors frontman Jim Morrison has been found alive in Paris more than 45 years after he supposedly died there.
The Truth:
Chalk false reports that Jim Morrison has been found living in a Paris retirement community up to a fake news website.
Fake news website The Nevada County Scooper started the rumor with a report that appeared under the headline, “Jim Morrison Found Alive in Paris Assisted Living Community.” The report claims that a Paris beat reporter named Belda Sauve broke the story after investigating Morrison’s death for 45 years:
“I was contacted by a nurse from Petites Soeurs des Pauvres, an assisted living hospital for the infirmed,” Ms. Sauvé told the Scooper. “This nurse informed me that she was caring for a patient named Jacques Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The patient, who is suffering fromalcoholism and liver and kidney failure, as well as moderate dementia, told her he was the grandson of the famous French post-impressionist artist, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec. Everyone believed his story because they knew that the senior Toulouse-Lautrec was a raging alcoholic that cavorted with prostitutes.”
“Over time, however, this patient would tell the nurses stories that didn’t seem to fit his originalnarrative. Stories of rock concerts, sexual orgies, and massive alcohol and illegal drug usage. At first, they brushed it off as his dementia talking,” whispered Ms. Sauvé. “One of the nurses, who had read the Morrison biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Danny Sugarman, began to relate the patients stories to those in the biography. Simple addition sent them to me,” exclaimed the proud journalist.
“I stopped by the hospital and interviewed Mr. Toulouse-Lautrec. We had great conversations about poetry and art, the Louvre, music, politics, and existentialism. When I mentioned Pamela Courson, Jim Morrison’s soul mate, he retreated within himself and became quiet. I sat there, watching him, silent for more than four hours, working in his brilliant but fragile egg-shell mind. And then he spoke, ‘Strange days have found me here, poisoned by an L.A. woman… waiting for the sun, amongst a feast of friends… lost in a Roman wilderness of pain… the crystal ship is slowly sinking, and the blood in the streets is up to my knees… I am ready to break on through to the other side… I see your pen and paper weave quick minarets… this is the end, my brain is squirming like a toad… Yes, I have taken a face from the ancient gallery…’ The non-sequiturs, that somehow fit, as always, continued to fly for an hour.”
The story was quickly shared more than 18,000 times on social media. But The Nevada County Scooper is far from a credible news source, according to its disclaimer:
This website is satirical in scope and intent. It provides fake news and social criticism in a satirical setting. If this offends you, you might want to consider doing something else with your time rather than looking at the Internet. Really, the quality of your life will improve dramatically. Our intention is not to fool anyone, but if you do get fooled, don’t sweat it. Please have fun and lighten up and watch out for Snopes.com. We’re not sure they’ve had all their vaccinations.
Questions about Jim Morrison’s death have persisted over the years, but there’s been no conclusive evidence to disprove that Morrison died in a bathtub of heart failure in July 1971.
In 2007, a former Paris nightclub manager claimed that Jim Morrison actually died of a heroin overdose in a toilet stall of the club. Two drug dealers dragged Morrison’s body back to his apartment and put him into a bathtub in a last-ditch attempt to revive him, the Associated Press reports.
Another theory is that Jim Morrison mistook a pile of heroin for cocaine and died after snorting it. But again, there’s no hard evidence to prove that.
No autopsy was performed on Jim Morrison, and Paris prosecutors have said that it’s not likely that a new investigation into his cause of death will be opened.