Did CeeLo Green’s cell phone really explode? No, publicity stunt

ByCraig Haley

A video (below) claiming to show a phone – often identified as a Samsung phone – explode when being used by The Voice coach CeeLo Green is spreading across the Internet.

Depending on what version of the video you see, the phone is either unidentified, or asserted to be a Samsung phone (Samsung recently recalled their Note 7 model after battery issues.)

However the video is not real. It was in fact a promotional video for a new project involving CeeLo called Gnarley Davidson. CeeLo Green soon published a video assuring his fans that he was “alive, well and okay” and that the video was a clip from an upcoming project.

“Actually what you saw today was a clip from a smaller video that we were shooting for a new project I’m doing called Gnarley Davidson, and it’s supposed to set up and introduce the new character identity, you know what I’m saying? And you know, forgive me y’all. I’m still going to release the music, but first and foremost, for everybody that loves me and cares about me, I just want to let y’all know that I’m okay.”

However many low quality aggregator websites picked up on the story and published it as genuine. A YouTube video also went viral, exploiting the recent news that Samsung recalled one of their Note models, by claiming it was a recalled Samsung phone that CeeLo was using. This isn’t the case.

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