Fact check: Altered image purportedly shows Queen Elizabeth's death on 'The Simpsons'

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY

September 24, 2022 at 6:45 AM·4 min read

The claim: Image shows 'The Simpsons' predicting Queen Elizabeth II's death

After a 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8 at the age of 96. Her funeral took place on Sept. 19.

Some social media users are claiming the animated sitcom "The Simpsons" predicted her death. The show is the subject of a long-standing social media trope that suggests it frequently predicts the future.

A video shared on Facebook features genuine footage of a royal funeral procession along with two purported screenshots from the animated show. The first shows an elderly woman wearing a crown in a scene with the character Homer Simpson, while the second supposedly shows the queen lying in a coffin marked with the dates "1926-2022."

USA TODAY has debunked numerous claims in the past about the show purportedly predicting major world events.

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The video has been viewed over 13 million times. Similar viral iterations have been shared on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

But the image depicting the queen in the casket has been digitally altered and is not from the show. No episodes of the show predict the timing of the queen's death.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.

Screenshot is digitally altered

The queen has been featured in six episodes of "The Simpsons" and mentioned in four others, according to a Simpsons Wiki page. None of these episodes involve the queen dying.

The video clip includes two images of the queen, one of which is real and one of which is altered.

The image showing the queen with Homer Simpson is legitimate and was taken from Episode 4 of Season 15, "The Regina Monologues," which aired on Nov. 23, 2003. In the episode, Homer Simpson crashes into the queen's carriage and is taken to court by the monarch. She is wearing the same outfit as in the purported coffin picture.

The other image never appeared in the show.

The altered image of the queen appears to be based on a previously debunked altered image of former President Donald Trump in a casket in a setting consistent with "The Simpsons." Details on the casket, flowers and wall all match the Trump image.

Independent fact-check outlets previously debunked the claim that the Trump image appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons."

Elements of the Trump and queen images are consistent with a scene from Episode 8 of Season 19, "Funeral for a Friend," which first aired on Nov. 25, 2007. The episode centers on the apparent death and funeral of the character Sideshow Bob, not the queen, according to its description on IMDb.

At one point in the episode, Sideshow Bob is pictured lying in a casket, with no dates marked on it, surrounded by flowers.

Fact check: Viral images of 'The Simpsons' unrelated to 2022 monkeypox outbreak

The altered casket image has been debunked by PolitiFact as well.

Show doesn't predict the future

While some social media users insist "The Simpsons" has predicted the future, the show's creators have denied this is the case.

“I would say in general when people say 'The Simpsons' has predicted something, it is just that we were satirizing real-life events from years before, and because history keeps repeating, it just seems like we were predicting things," writer and producer Bill Oakley said in a 2020 Reuters interview.

USA TODAY has previously debunked claims that "The Simpsons" made predictions related to the emergence of the monkeypox virus, the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy.

Our rating: Altered

Based on our research, we rate ALTERED an image that purportedly shows "The Simpsons" predicting the queen's death. No episodes of the show predict the queen's death. The clip in question includes an image showing the queen in a casket with the date 2022, but that image was digitally created.