TikTok star and boxing influencer Ben Williams tells fans he's alive after videos circulate claiming he's dead

A TikTok influencer has posted a video to his 673,000 followers to reassure them he is still alive after videos began to circulate on the social media platform claiming he had died.

Ben Williams, a 20-year-old boxer from Ireland, posted a 30 second video to his account @benwilliams.3 yesterday (Wednesday February 21) in which he told his fans he was "still alive, still all good".

Videos claiming that Williams, who began boxing at the age of 12 and went on to become a sports influencer online, started appearing on TikTok in recent days. One even claimed that his cause of death had been a car crash.

Distraught fans were quick to make tribute videos to him, including one titled 'rest in paradise Ben', which included a montage of images of him which included the words "you will never be forgotten" and "you will be remembered for everything you have done".

Comments on the video included more tributes from other heartbrokens, such as one who said "RIP fly high in heaven king." Another person said: "Can’t believe he’s with the birds in the sky."

Williams, from Bluebell in Dublin, posted a video to his official TikTok account with the caption "strange behaviour". In it, he spoke directly to his fans in a video diary and said: "Guys, what the f*** is going on? All I'm seeing on TikTok is videos of me saying rest in peace." He went on to confirm that he's in London currently and is very much still alive and well.

He then added that he had woken up to "40" missed calls from concerned family members and friends who had seen the videos about his supposed death online. He concluded the video by saying "I'm supposed to be dead according to TikTok which is a bit mad. Me being dead . . . not funny. Social media continues to baffle me every single day. Remember, don't believe what you see online, it's all fake."

Some fans took to the video to express their relief that Williams was okay, but others still seemed to believe Williams had died. One person questioned "was this his goodbye message?", while others commented to say that watching the video made it feel like "he's still with us". In response, Williams, who appeared to be taking a humorous approach to the hoax, replied to one fan say that he had "recorded this from the grave".

Williams also told Sunday World that his influencer friends have been the subject of similar fake death posts in the past. It is not known who started the rumour that Williams had died, or why they did so.

Williams, who also has thousands of followers on Instagram, began posting on TikTok during the Covid-19 lockdown and soon amassed many followers. He is known for posting videos about his boxing career, but also for his prank videos.

“I was about 16 and Covid came around. I was just literally bored. I was making TikToks during the lockdown, I had little else to be doing," he told Sunday World.

“I never took it seriously until one day I made a TikTok video. I put creatine (a popular sports supplement) into a plastic bag and got my ma to look for keys in my jacket and she thought it was cocaine, so I pranked her.

"I wasn’t expecting it to do any numbers, just having a laugh as usual, and it got 22 million views. I woke up overnight and my following went from something like 10,000 to over 100,000. When that happened, I said ‘there’s something to be made from this’."