Not even Fox News can kill the Notorious RBG. On Monday morning, Fox and Friends briefly aired a graphic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg along with the dates 1933–2019, implying the Supreme Court justice had died. The 85-year-old, however, is very much alive, and Ginsburg is said to be currently convalescing at home after undergoing surgery in December for early-stage lung cancer. (Still, she’s probably in much better shape than you are. Deal with it.)
Later in the show, perhaps realizing that accidentally declaring someone dead on-air isn’t great, co-host Steve Doocy issued an apology. “A technical error in the control room triggered a graphic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a date on it,†he said. “We don’t want to make it seem anything other than that was a mistake. It was an accident.†In a statement to Deadline, a Fox News spokesperson confirmed it was an error by the graphics team.
In 1993, Ginsburg became the second woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, and she’s recently morphed into a gavel-wielding, pop-culture phenomenon. Her trials in life and the courtroom have been the subject of a certifiably fresh documentary, and a biopic in which her real-life husband, Marty Ginsburg, was played by a not-angry Armie Hammer. She’ll also make a cameo, at least as a mini-figurine, in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Final verdict: RBG just keeps winning.