Kimo Not Dead: UFC Star Kimo Leopoldo Did Not Die of Heart Attack

by Jon Azpiri | July 22, 2009 at 07:40 am

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It turns out that Kimo Leopoldo is not dead. Yesterday, reports circulated around the internet that the former UFC star died of a heart attack.

Stories ran in several major media outlets stating that Kimo died, but Kimo Leopoldo himself has come out to say that reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

“I knew I wasn’t dead,” Leopoldo told Yahoo! Sports in a phone interview on Tuesday evening, hours after he was falsely reported deceased by numerous media outlets. “So when I was reading this I wondered if I was jinxed or something was going to happen.”

It turns out that the Kimo death rumor started in The Underground, a forum on MMA.tv. The initial post reported that Leopoldo died in Costa Rica.

The post was soon picked up by TMZ.com, which “confirmed” Kimo's death. The New York Daily News, Orange County Register, and Las Vegas Sun later picked up the story.

“I’ve always had strange things written about me but nothing this bizarre. I couldn’t believe it when I searched for my name and I wrote in ‘Kimo Leopoldo’ and it added the word ‘death.’ ”