Have no fear, Fresh Prince fans. Will Smith isn't actually dead.
Apparently inspired by the holiday weekend, jokesters "killed off" the Men in Black alum, claiming that he had fallen off a New Zealand cliff. First appearing on the website FakeAWish.com, the Long Island Press reported that, according to the story, Smith fell more than 60 feet to his death on the Kauri Cliffs while filming a movie in the "Lord of the Rings"-esque country.
Unsatisfied with just killing off a celebrity, pranksters decided to perform a miracle: bring rapper Tupac back from the dead. According to the Village Voice, the story was originally posted on a PBS website and claimed that the infamous rapper, shot in 1996, had been found alive and well at a small New Zealand resort.
The celebrity death hoax has always been in vogue but it has only been encouraged by the ease of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Usually dying of freak accidents galore, celebrities going out "Hollywood style" has been and will always be tempting for the Internet hack, whether they're talented enough to hack into news websites or amateur enough to plant the seed of doubt by posting the death on Wikipedia.
This isn't the first time that Smith has allegedly died in a horrible accident. Back in 2009, reports emerged that the actor had been driving his Porsche in the Hollywood Hills when he lost control of the car and flipped it, killing him instantly. While the story obviously wasn't true, it was speculated that it could have originated from a story about Carolina Panthers player Steve Smith after he announced that he would still play despite being in a car accident. With the way Twitter and the rest of the web works, the rumor that Will Smith was dead spread like wildfire.
2011 hasn't had its shortage of celebrity deaths. Here are just a few:
Avril Lavigne was 2011's first celebrity casulaty when she allegedly died after a freak snowboarding accident. Her boyfriend was injured in a surfboarding accident, but the pop star was just fine
In March, word hit the net that funnyman Jim Carrey had died after a snowboarding accident in Switzerland. Rewind back to January. Christian Slater joined the club after it was reported that he. . .died in a snowboarding accident in Switzerland. Ironically, both Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy passed away in the same fashion in December 2010.
Will Smith's oldest son, actor Jaden Smith, supposedly died after, you guessed it, a snowboarding accident in Switzerland. Following this, Jaden's "Karate Kid" co-star Jackie Chan fell victim to the death hoax. He, however, supposedly died of a heart attack.
Jessica Sinclair, Will Smith: Dead?, Long Island Press.com
Maura Johnston, Tupac Is (Probably) not Alive and Living in New Zealand, The Village Voice Blogs
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