Rue McClanahan: Why 'The Golden Girls' star's death is trending on Twitter – five years after she died

Social media saw an outpouring of sadness and affection, again

(Getty)

When Rue McClanahan died five years ago, there was no little outpouring of sadness and affection.

People took to social media to pay tribute to the Emmy-winning actress, perhaps best known for playing the role of Blanche Devereaux in the classic The Golden Girls comedy.

Oddly, enough, five years after her death, Rue McClanahan was trending on Twitter and Facebook again.

Precisely how this happened remains unclear. It may have been that people posted obituaries of her to mark the anniversary and then other people got the wrong idea, assuming she had just died, and then reposted them.

Whatever it was, by the end of Thursday, the actress who died on June 3, 2010, after suffering a stroke at the age of 76, was once again top of the news.

Even more oddly, the same same thing happened last year. On June 10 2014, news of her death was again viral with many people linking to the 2010 obituary of Ms McClanahan.

Of course, all of this raises some issues. Not least the assumption that all of these people claiming to be huge fans of the actress and expressing sadness over her death, ought to have known she died five years ago.

Of course, all of this was brilliant for those websites and publishers who saw traffic jump as people once again read about death the Oklahoma-born actress. Makes you wonder if they somehow had a hand in it.