Rest assured: Owen Wilson is still alive. So is Eddie Murphy. But you could be excused for thinking otherwise if Twitter serves as one of your primary sources of information.
In what's becoming a regular occurrence, a hoax spread across the social media site on December 29 claiming that both Hollywood stars had met with untimely deaths, reports Entertainment Weekly.
The Wilson death rumor started via a news report from an operation called Global Associated News. The site claimed that the Little Fockers star crashed into a tree and died while snowboarding in Zermatt, Switzerland. The story quickly went viral, but if readers clicked on the "Home" section of the article, it redirected to a site called Fake a Wish that allows users to "enter a celebrity name to create a list of fake articles about them."
Wilson's rep responded to the Twitter uproar Wednesday afternoon, calling the reports "absolutely false."
Shrek star Eddie Murphy was also rumored to have died in the same manner as Wilson. It was the second time this year that the former Saturday Night Live star was rumored to have died. In January, reports surfaced that he died while working on a film adaptation of the video game Left 4 Dead.
His rep also dispelled the rumors with a statement.
"Trust me, Eddie is very much alive and well," the rep said "and definitely not in Switzerland snowboarding."
U.S. & World
Suggested Reading: Entertainment Weekly, E! Online, Los Angeles Times
