Let this story function a reminder to you — be in contact along with your dad, or else! In any other case, you might find yourself just like the household of a father in Belgium. When his household fell out of contact, he determined to rectify the issue in probably the most unhinged, petty means potential, and it is made him immediately well-known — or possibly notorious — worldwide.
Belgian TikToker David Baertan, aka Ragnar Le Fou, staged his personal demise after which confirmed as much as his personal funeral in a helicopter.
No, this is not just a few TikTok stunt. Er effectively — it’s a TikTok stunt, but it surely truly occurred. Baertan, 45, enlisted his spouse and kids to assist him make the stunt occur. They introduced his demise on social media, ready a funeral, and gathered all his household collectively close to his Liege, Belgium dwelling to have a good time his life and ship him off to the subsequent astral aircraft.
However simply because the funeral bought underway, a helicopter swooped in. Inside was none aside from the person they have been all there to have a good time, Ragnar Le Fou himself. As you may guess, it triggered fairly an uproar on the funeral service.
Grief-stricken kinfolk have been seen crying and embracing Baerten and one another, relieved to see that their beloved relative hadn’t truly shuffled off this mortal aircraft in spite of everything, and Baerten says that response is exactly why he threw the entire prank collectively.
Baerten says he faked his demise to ‘educate his household a lesson’ as a result of they’d fallen out of contact and stopped inviting him to gatherings.
That is actually one method to get the purpose throughout! Most of us at one time or one other have been there — my Dad and I usually quibble over who owes it to who to select up the cellphone (sorry Dad, I am attempting!), and the older all of us get and the extra settled into our personal lives we turn out to be, the onerous it’s to recollect to maintain the house fires burning on the subject of our prolonged members of the family and far-off mates.
Baerten, nevertheless, is not having any of that. In an interview with the UK’s The Occasions newspaper, he mentioned, “What I see in my household usually hurts me. I by no means get invited to something. No one sees me. All of us grew aside. I felt unappreciated.”
So, he determined to wake them up in just about probably the most unforgettable means potential. “I needed to present them a life lesson,” he mentioned, “and present them that you just shouldn’t wait till somebody is useless to satisfy up with them.”
Photograph: TikTok
The stunt positively labored, however not all people is pleased about it. Baerten has gotten loads of blowback, however he is not backing down.
Baerten’s pal Thomas Faut captured the second when Baerten made his massive helicopter entrance to the funeral — whereupon, in a second of traditional camp that can stay on eternally, Baerten hilariously mentioned, “Cheers to you all, welcome to my funeral.”
However hilarious because it was, what Baerten’s household felt was a reduction. “You had us,” Faut wrote within the caption to his TikTok of the scene. “We love you, my pal. We’re pleased you might be nonetheless amongst us.” Different movies from the occasion confirmed Baerten’s family and friends overtly sobbing with reduction that he was nonetheless with them.
Photograph: TikTok
That’s exactly what has made a number of folks on-line activate him. “Now we all know why folks did not like him,” one man commented on TikTok, whereas others known as his prank “a pathetic stunt” and “simply improper.” Others marveled that “the ego on this man should be great.”
However for his half, Baerten is not backing down. On his personal TikTok web page, he is been responding to his critics, together with one who scolded him to “pay again the [$7,500 in funeral costs] folks shelled out to your rip-off, then we’ll speak about life classes.” “Nonsense,” Baerten responded. “You are fully loopy.”
Photograph: TikTok
And he posted a particular dedication to all his family and friends doubling down as effectively. Over the traditional 80s French pop track “Aimons-nous Vivants” by François Valéry, which urges everybody to “love one another whereas we’re alive” and never “look ahead to demise” to make us present it, Baerten smirked knowingly to the digicam, clearly conscious that his message had been obtained.
Okay positive, possibly a easy dialog would have performed the trick — and never triggered his family and friends a second of trauma and disappointment within the course of. However you gotta hand it to Baerten, no one has ever despatched the message to be in contact fairly so clearly. And with that, I am off to set a calendar reminder to name my Dad on Father’s Day. Thanks, Monsieur Baerten!
John Sundholm is a information and leisure author who covers popular culture, social media and human curiosity matters.
