Stallone: Viral report about death a hoax

The actor is far from the first person to be a victim of a celebrity death hoax.

Sylvester Stallone is alive. The actor and his brother took to social media on Monday to reassure the world of this fact after a hoax began circulating on Facebook and Twitter that claimed the actor had died at the age of 71 following a battle with prostate cancer. The hoax, the origin of which is unclear, was fairly transparent — Stallone has been steadily working, recently appearing in an episode of “This Is Us” and filming several movies, according to IMDb.

Perhaps that’s why he seemed to brush it off in an Instagram post.

“Please ignore this stupidity,” he wrote in the post, “Alive and well and happy and healthy.”

“Still punching!” he added, referring to his most famous character, the boxer Rocky Balboa. This marks at least the second time that false rumors of Stallone’s death circulated online. The first time, in September 2016, a fake CNN report of his supposed “death” appeared on Twitter, as NME reported at the time.

That shouldn’t be too surprising. The actor is far from the first person to be a victim of a celebrity death hoax. They’ve been around for ages. In 1966, a small swath of rock fans claimed Paul McCartney died and was replaced by a look-alike. The rise of social media has made the spreading of such rumors easier. It’s become a common internet prank.

Among the celebrity targets of an online death hoax: Betty White, Jack Black, Robert Redford, Macaulay Culkin, Queen Elizabeth II and Jackie Chan — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.