The world has said goodbye to so many famous people in the last few days: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, that guy with the Oxi Clean commercials.
But even more famous people are fake-clogging up fake-heaven. Yes, celebrity death hoaxes are running rampant -- with fake-death tolls fake-mounting on a fake-scale unseen since the fake-holocaust. It's fake-shocking!
Today's first notable faux-bituary (guffaw) goes out to Rick Astley. The '80s pop star, he of "Never Gonna Give You Up" infamy, was rumoured to have been found dead in a Berlin hotel room late last night. Rumours -- and no doubt a fondness for a certain stale Internet meme -- were enough to drag Astley to the top of Twitter's trending topics, but according to the UK's Times Online the world was RickRolled -- with lies!
The source of the rumour was an article posted to CNN's user-generated iReport website, the Times reports. Adding to the shenanigans, the culprits used an Associated Press reporter's byline.
But yeah, Astley's not dead. According to his website, he's even scheduled to play a show in Denmark on Friday. Go figure.
While rubes were RickRolling friends and family in memoriam, another hoax led many to think June 29 was the day the sexy died.
Even George Clooney isn't impervious to celebrity death hoaxes. After some grim false reports surfaced at fakeawish.com, TMZ says that the star's reps were "bombarded by frantic calls." Given fakeawish.com is clearly marked -- in large, bold-face font -- as a "celeb fake news generator," we would expect Clooney's well-wishers were calling his publicist for instructions on how to use "The Google." But no. According to Clooney's publicist, Stan Rosenfield, both members of the press and Clooney's friends were calling out of concern for the star.
George Clooney, so you know, is still totally alive.
Also still alive, but the subject of recent death hoaxes: Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Natalie Portman, Harrison Ford and Jeff Goldblum.
Our condolences go out to all those celebrities not awesome enough to rate a death hoax. Our thoughts are with you in this difficult time.
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