Tommy Chong is the latest celebrity to be killed off by the Internet. While one report on the Internet claimed that Chong lost his life to cancer, another stated that he committed suicide. However, none of these reports are true and Chong is alive and well.
One article that has since gone viral on social media platforms such as Facebook stated that the 78-year-old lost his battle to cancer and died early on Wednesday. Another post claimed that he took his own life, but did not give a reason for the alleged suicide.
On Friday, Chong took to his official Twitter account to put to his death rumours to rest.
"I'm not dead but I just smoked a killer joint," he wrote. "Don't believe the shit about me being dead. I am still here. I'm stoned but I am not dead," he said in a clip posted on Twitter. His wife, Shelby Chong, followed it up with another post saying: "Thanks to everyone who has been offering me condolences but, the man is far from dead my friends."
The suicide report, reportedly, has been circulating since last December and this is the second time this year that the Internet has killed off Chong.
"Based on how it went viral even as of posting time, it appears that there are still Facebook users who were fooled by the said report," a source was quoted as saying by Chatt Sports Net. The media outlet added that the link to Chong's condolence page on Facebook is a dubious scheme to extract information from unsuspecting users.
@TexanDee Twitter kills more people in a day that anything else lol
— Shelby Chong (@shelbychong) September 23, 2016
He's like the energizer bunny he just keeps going and going! https://t.co/DbtDuyXDU6 — Shelby Chong (@shelbychong) September 23, 2016