Checking claim Bruce Springsteen paid for funerals of Texas flood victims
In July 2025, musician Bruce Springsteen publicly revealed he donated money to the families of victims of the floods in Texas for funeral expenses and compensation.
A rumor that circulated online in early July 2025 claimed musician Bruce Springsteen paid the funeral expenses of victims of the fatal floods in Texas. According to the story, Springsteen also offered “compensation” for the families of the victims. Quite a few Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether the rumor was true as it spread online.
For example, on July 7, the Facebook page Dusty Roads Radio posted (archived) about Springsteen’s alleged generous donation, receiving over 19,000 reactions and nearly 3,000 comments. The post also included a photo of Springsteen on stage among a collage of images from the disaster.
The story read, “SURPRISE! Bruce Springsteen has stepped in to pay for the funeral expenses and compensation for the families of the victims of the devastating Texas flash floods for their emotional and financial losses, leaving fans VERY EMOTIONAL…”
(Dusty Roads Radio Facebook page)
Other Facebook users (archived, archived) also shared the claim with nearly identical language. Some of those posts featured links in top comments leading to articles hosted by WordPress sites, such as one advertisement-filled story hosted on an unknown blog.
The article featured an alleged quote from Springsteen, who purportedly said, “My heart goes out to every family touched by this disaster. It’s important that we stand together in times of hardship, offering not just words but meaningful support.”
However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting about Springsteen paying for the funerals of flood victims or making the above statement. Prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this rumor if true. For instance, the CBS affiliate in East Texas, CBS19, published a list of celebrities and companies who announced they would donate to the victims of the July 4 floods in Texas.
Rather, the person or people who authored the story fabricated the entire tale as one of hundreds of inspirational tales that depict celebrities and athletes performing inspiring acts of kindness. They aimed to earn advertising revenue on websites linked from the aforementioned Facebook posts. While it’s possible Springsteen privately donated to help victims of the floods, the story about Springsteen doing so publicly is unsupported by evidence. We’ve reached out to Springsteen’s publicist for comment and will update this article if we receive a response.
An examination of the Dusty Roads Radio page’s stories found multiple indications of artificial intelligence-generated (AI) images and text specifically centered around Springsteen. For example, another post (archived) featured an image purporting to depict Springsteen in a boat during relief efforts, but the Hive Moderation AI-detection website found a 99.9% probability that someone “likely” generated the image with AI.
Further, it alleged George Strait met up with Springsteen during his own efforts to provide relief to flood victims, another celebrity donation claim that Snopes previously debunked.
Snopes contacted the Dusty Roads Radio Facebook page to ask about the fictional stories displayed on the feed and will update this story if we receive more information.
Further, the Dusty Roads Radio Facebook post about Springsteen shared identical language with a similar claim Snopes previously debunked about musician Eric Clapton, suggesting the copy was written by the same author or generated using AI.
These stories all very much resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”
For further reading about bogus claims surrounding the Texas floods, Snopes previously reported on another story claiming musicians Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan and Gwen Stefani went to Texas to help flood relief efforts.
