Fan Fare

Kanye West death hoax hits the Web

Kanye West is alive and well, despite an Internet hoax suggesting that the rap star died in a Los Angeles car crash on Tuesday.

A fake story was circulated via e-mail and on social networking websites saying that West was killed in a collision that left a second person injured, a third arrested for  manslaughter and a fourth person detained by police.

None of it was true. The rap star’s girlfriend, Amber Rose, posted a message on Twitter denying the story. “This ‘RIP Kanye West’ topic is not funny and it’s NOT TRUE!” she wrote, according to news website MTV.com. Her Twitter post has since been taken down.

By Wednesday afternoon, the Kanye death hoax was replaced on Twitter by the following popular wisecrack, repeated by several posters, “Whoever started the RIP Kanye West hoax, Imma let you finish, but Balloon Boy had the best hoax of all time!”

West, of course, interrupted singer Taylor Swift’s victory speech last month the MTV Video Music Awards with the words, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time.”

West, who pulled out this month of a planned tour with singer Lady Gaga, isn’t the first celebrity to be the subject of a fake death report. But could it be the MTV incident that led the hoaxers to choose West as their target this time? If not,  why have the mystery hoaxers got it in for Kanye?