This week it was Ricky Martin, whose false death report wasn’t pulled together from hysterical fan tweets or a dubious looking news blog. Instead, the Latino singer found himself the victim of an entirely fabricated news report on YouTube, complete with grief-stricken comments definitely not from his family and a fake statement from Ian Thorpe – the recently “out” Australian swimmer – about a child the pair had supposedly reared. Thorpe recently revealed that they had never met, let alone enjoyed a life-changing romantic tryst, according to The Independent.
Even worse, however, is the footage of a horrific car crash its creator claimed Martin had perished in on New Year’s Day, with a red ring around a vehicle they falsely asserted he was travelling in. So far, over 300,000 impressionable people have viewed the video, reported The Independent.
But one Arab celebrity fell for the hoax; Lebanese superstar Haifa Wehbe sent out a tweet to the world expressing her extreme sadness at the tragic news.
However, Haifa immediately deleted that tweet and replaced it with another one upon hearing that the entire thing was a hoax.
"They tell me that it is a mere rumor, I do hope so from the bottom of my heart," Haifa tweeted.
