For the fifth time since May of 2011, Eddie Murphy was made the object of a celebrity death hoax. According to MediaFetcher.Com, Murphy was purported to have been killed in a snowboarding accident upon striking a tree at high speed. Oddly enough, this rumor was identical to a rumor spread by MediaFetcher in May of 2011.
The rumor spread like wildfire on Twitter, but many Twitter users called the veracity of the report into question. Shortly thereafter, E! News confirmed that the story was a falsehood cooked up by the Global Associated News, a collective of media pranksters that has cooked up stories about Reba McEntire falling to her death in the Austrian Alps and a similar fate befalling Jeff Goldlum in New Zealand – reports that ostensibly are hoaxes, one and all.
Eddie Murphy, who was photographed at the BET awards on July 1 with girlfriend Rocsi Diaz, is alive and well. The same cannot be said for his latest movie, A Thousand Words, which despite its $40 million budget, has only grossed about half of that since being released to theaters this past March.