LOS ANGELES, Dec 30 — News flash: Tony Hawk is alive, everyone. We repeat, Tony Hawk is alive.
Despite what you may have read overnight, the iconic skateboarder has not died from an opiate overdose, as many Twitter users were led to believe after a false tweet started circulating on social media.
The death hoax gained veracity after media outlets like TMZ and Fox News also picked up the news.
BREAKING : Famous Skateboarder Tony Hawk has been found dead in his house due to an opiate overdose
— Fox News (@FOX5LlVE) December 29, 2016
https://t.co/xnO5amJRni
For a few hours, the fabricated news was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter.
Hawk quickly took to his own Twitter yesterday to put the rumour to rest.
He wrote that he is, in fact, alive and “still breathing” and that at the “exact time of [his] supposed demise” he was snowboarding at Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort in Eastern California.
I'm still alive, just older (& wiser...?). But still breathing, riding my skateboard & raising kids.
— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) December 29, 2016
F off 2016; you won't be taking me too.
Here's what I was doing at the exact time of my supposed demise. Don't believe everything you read... we can do better as a society. pic.twitter.com/Xhdz7ru6Pv
— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) December 29, 2016
This isn’t the first time that Hawk has been the victim of a death hoax. In 2012, rumours started to circulate claiming he had died in a car crash.
