The "Golden Girls" theme song celebrated loyal friendship, and apparently many people aren't willing to let their affection for one of the fierce foursome go -- even if it's a bit belated.

News of the death of Rue McClanahan, who played feisty Southern belle Blanche Devereaux on the beloved '80s series, went viral on Thursday. McClanahan died at the age of 76 after suffering a massive stroke, but it didn't happen on Thursday. Or the day before. Or even this week.

It happened five years ago.

So why, then, is this news still making it into your trending topics? Why are people tweeting about it and posting about it on Facebook it as if it just happened, when in fact, it happened on June 3, 2010?

Though there's no logical reasoning behind this strange phenomenon (and we stress the word "logical" here), CBS has a bit of an explanation as to how this may have happened. Apparently, a "Golden Girls" fan shared a CBS.com obituary of McClanahan on Thursday with her more than 21,000 Facebook followers, reacting to the actress's death as if it just occurred. And even though that obit clearly stated the date (it's right atop the headline), the post was nonetheless shared another 2,637 times, and the mistaken news swept across the web.

And this isn't the first time that McClanahan was unceremoniously killed off again on the internet; the same thing happened last year, too. That instance can also be traced to a social media post: one superfan tweeted on June 3, 2014 that it was the anniversary of McClanahan's death, and the misinterpretation snowballed from there. At least the original poster knew that the actress had already passed away (and even put the date in her tweet -- followers really have no excuse on that one).

While McClanahan herself is perhaps singing a chorus of "Thank you for being a friend" from up in the clouds at this new outpouring of grief, we can't help but have a different reaction. It involves lots of #facepalm.

[via: CBS]

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