The internet rumor that Rowan Atkinson, who played Mr. Bean, has fallen sick is untrue!

The extensively circulated photo is a composite of two images. On one side, Rowan Atkinson, a young Mr. Bean, is depicted with the year 1990 indicated, while on the other, an elderly man with the Mr. Bean face is shown. The image of the elderly person appears to be very shriveled and sick, while the year is listed as 2024. This post is shared with a caption, “Repost if you ever enjoyed his funny videos during your Childhood.”

What’s the truth?

Using relevant keyword searches such as “Mr. Bean sick” and “Is Mr. Bean actor Rowan Atkinson sick,” we began our investigation. We could not find any news sources reporting on Rowan Atkinson, the actor from Mr. Bean, sick. All worldwide media outlets would have reported on Mr. Bean’s sickness or death if it had been true.

Further investigation led us to a recent X post in which Rowan Atkinson, the actor from Mr. Bean, was featured in an interview with a host. The post is captioned “Surely this is Rowan Atkinson doing a Martin Brundle impression to Martin Brundle without him (or seemingly anybody else) realizing?!”

Here, we see Rowan Atkinson, who plays Mr. Bean, talking about the race with Martin Brundle, a former race car driver and commentator. Upon watching the video, it is evident that Mr. Bean is unknowingly mimicking the host. This video confirms that he is indeed alive, well, and not ill in the hospital as depicted in the widely shared photo.

Then we used the simple Google reverse image search with the available viral image and found an article dated 2020 by the Manchester Evening News. Interestingly, this article carried the same viral image of another person wearing the same red t-shirt and lying in a hospital bed.