Entertainment legend Betty White has joined Twitter, but was initially thought to have been the victim of a Twitter hoax after an account claiming to be her was opened by White’s people, without White herself being informed.

The profile was first revealed to be a fake by White through her ‘Hot in Cleveland’ co-stars Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli when they each took to their own profiles to advise users to unfollow the person claiming to be White.

While fake Twitter profiles are commonplace on the social networking site, this alleged hoax was even more surprising due to the fact that White’s alleged profile had a verification checkmark, a feature which only Twitter itself is able to give when it has confirmed that profiles are indeed legitimate.

The profile, under the Twitter handle @BettyMWhite, went up on April 10 and amassed over 140,000 followers by the time of this writing. Only three tweets had been posted before Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli, with whom Betty currently co-stars on the TV Land sitcom ‘Hot in Cleveland’, reported that it was in fact an impostor running the profile. Bertinelli wrote:

Just spoke with Betty and she is VERY upset! @BettyMWhite is NOT her. Don’t know how they got verified, but it is not Betty. Please RT!

Leeves followed with:

@BettyMWhite is a fake and has upset the real Betty White! Please unfollow!

However, just minutes later Bertinelli took to her Twitter profile again, this time writing:

Stop the presses! Betty just got a call. An account was opened on her behalf by her people. More to come…

The evident confusion will likely become a source of amusement for fans of the 90-year old screen icon, who are no doubt looking forward to seeing her attempt to grapple with a popular form of modern technology.

A hoax, however, would have been embarrassing for more than just as her fans as television network NBC was already using it to help promote their new series ‘Betty White’s Off Their Rockers’, while the TV Line website earlier today crafted a ‘@BettyMWhite Twitter Bingo Card‘ for users to play along with as they watched the Emmy winner’s foray into social media.

While it seems that White’s people will be doing all of the tweeting, her official presence on Twitter makes her one of the oldest verified celebrities on the site.

Image Courtesy of   Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com

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About the author

Stephen Conlon
Postgraduate student, Apple geek.

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