November 18, 2008

Miley Cyrus Death Hoax Spreads After YouTube Account Allegedly Hacked

By Gil Kaufman (MTV.com)

At this point, Miley Cyrus should think about going retro and just dumping all her Internet and e-mail accounts. After an incident earlier this year, in which a hacker acquired racy photos of Cyrus from her e-mail, on Sunday the teen star was the victim of a more malicious attack that claimed she had been killed by a drunk driver. This is also the second time this year such a rumor of the Hannah Montana star's death has circulated (the first occurred on the weekend of September 5).

Early Sunday morning, Cyrus' Miley and Mandy Show YouTube page featured a two-minute video that opened with the sounds of Cyrus' sentimental new ballad, "Goodbye," and a somber message from Mandy Jiroux. The video has since been taken down, but it's still available on Videogum.com.

The video features a note supposedly from Cyrus' friend that says, "Hey, guys, this is Mandy and I have some very sad news :( ...We're very hurt to tell everyone this, but Miley died this morning after being hit by a drunk driver. Miley told us if anything ever happened to her, then we should let her fans know before the public...R.I.P. honey, we will miss you so much."

Jiroux told E! Online that it was posted by a hacker. While Cyrus didn't refer to the breach on her MySpace page, Jiroux posted on her own page, "MILEY IS OK!! Some1 hacked our youtube account!"

The information was good news for Miley fans, some of whom commented on Jiroux's page. "Wow, I'm so glad it was a hacker," Aaron wrote. "Today was so bad, I saw that video and I actually thought that Miley had died. I couldn't even breathe, it was horrible!!! I would not be able to live without Miley. She is my role model."

One superfan posted what purported to be the hacker's YouTube account, and another offered the simple message that "hackers are poopy!"

A spokesperson for Cyrus could not be reached for comment at press time.

Cyrus isn't the only celebrity battling false death rumors on the Internet these days. Earlier this month, troubled comedian Katt Williams was falsely reported to have died in a plane crash, and last month the victim was Lil Wayne, who had purportedly been shot dead in a street gang battle.