Daily Mail ties Yorkshire tiger death to Skyrim fandom
Windows Central editor Jez Corden mocked the Daily Mail's reasoning, saying the tabloid blamed Skyrim because it features large saber cats.
William Chapman, a former child actor, died on 10 October 2026 after entering a tiger enclosure at a wildlife park in Yorkshire, England. The Daily Mail, in its coverage of the death, linked the incident to Chapman's fandom of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, according to gamespark.jp.
The tabloid described him as a fan of the fantasy RPG, in which players fight monsters and large predators such as saber cats, and also questioned how his online gaming habits may have affected his mental state.
The reasoning drew derision from Windows Central editor Jez Corden, who mocked the paper on his X account by saying it blamed Skyrim because the game features "large saber cats." Replies to his post pointed out that Skyrim is not an online game, and compared the coverage to past criticism of DOOM in the 1990s and the Grand Theft Auto series in the 2000s.
Comparisons to earlier panics about games have surfaced before. In 1974, with a predecessor in 1971, Dungeons & Dragons launched and was later accused of leading to Satanism, an idea that inspired the film Mazes and Monsters.
Quick answers
Who was William Chapman?
A former child actor who died on 10 October 2026 after entering a tiger enclosure at a wildlife park in Yorkshire, England.
What did Jez Corden say about the Daily Mail?
The Windows Central editor mocked the paper's reasoning on X, saying it blamed Skyrim because the game features "large saber cats."