Truthers: Tiffany Dover Is Dead*

Special Episode: Tiffany Dover Speaks

<p>Nine months after this series ended without landing an on the record interview with its subject, host Brandy Zadrozny wakes up to a text message: “While I did not die that day, the life I knew did.” It’s signed “Tiffany Dover.” The missive sends Brandy back to Chattanooga and Higdon, where this time she’s invited in by Tiffany herself. Now, for the first time, Tiffany Dover tells her side of the story—and describes what life is like at the center of a remarkably durable antivax conspiracy theory. Finally, Brandy goes back to the truthers who promised they’d recant—or pay up—if she produced an interview with Tiffany.</p>

Welcome to one of the internet’s weirdest obsessions. Back in December of 2020, a nurse named Tiffany Dover fainted on camera while she was talking to reporters after getting her first COVID shot. She got right back up and gave another interview, but it was too late. A conspiracy theory was already racing around the world: Dover had died. She’d been replaced by a body double. And an ever-expanding list of conspirators was in on the cover-up, including the drug companies, the hospital, the media, and maybe even the Pope. Tiffany Dover is alive and well, but she’s stayed silent through it all. And now her story has been hijacked by total strangers trying to make people doubt the safety of the COVID vaccine. In this first season of Truthers, a podcast project about misinformation and conspiracy theories, NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny sets out to show what’s true and what isn’t—and how one person’s life became a weapon in a global information war.