Belgian Dad Surprises Friends and Family By Showing Up to His Own Funeral in a Helicopter

How far would you go to remind loved ones how much you mean to them? For one Belgian man, this involved faking his own death, planning his own funeral, and then showing up in a helicopter to shocked friends and family.

It sounds like the plot of a movie, but this is exactly what TikToker David Baerten did, along with the help of his wife and children. To help spread rumors of his apparent death, the 45-year-old father had his daughter write a fake "tribute" to him on social media.

"Rest in peace, Daddy. I will never stop thinking about you," she wrote, according to the New York Post. "Why is life so unfair? Why you? You were going to be a grandfather, and you still had your whole life ahead of you. I love you! We love you! We will never forget you."

As a result, dozens showed up to Baerten's "funeral," which was held near the city of Liege last weekend. However, as funeral goers awaited his casket, he touched down from the sky, in a scene that was captured in a TikTok video. For the most part, friends and family seemed relieved that Baerten was alive, as many rushed to embrace him.

Baerten later explained his motivation for faking his own death.

"What I see in my family often hurts me, I never get invited to anything. Nobody sees me. We all grew apart. I felt unappreciated,” he said of his elaborate stunt. “That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them."

Still, faking your own death is quite the gamble. While in the short term, your loved ones might be happy to see that you're still alive, that feeling could soon be replaced with anger at having been emotionally manipulated. In other words, it remains to be seen whether Baerten's social calendar will be filling up in the future.