Morgan Freeman may have played God on the big screen. But did he just meet his maker? And did he actually do an audio rendition of Fifty Shades of Grey before he kicked the bucket?
Word spread like wildfire yesterday that the 75-year-old acting legend had suddenly passed away, thanks to a Facebook page that's so far garnered 66,000 likes. At the same time, a YouTube video surfaced last Sunday purportingly featuring Freeman narrating some naughty selections from E.L. James bondage-themed best-seller.
Well, E! News has looked into these rumors and can definitely say the answer is...
So false!
"Morgan is alive and well, and joins the long list of actors who have been victimized by this hoax," a rep for Freeman tells us.
This isn't the first time the thesp has been killed off by the Internet. Two years ago, the Twitterverse lit up with rumors of his premature demise, which obviously turned out to be false.
No doubt the news that he's A-OK will come as a relief to his legion of fans, many of whom took to posting comments expressing their outrage over the ruse. Those feeling duped might have also figured it out a little earlier, by the way, if they'd bothered to read the Facebook page's "about section," which states: "He's still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet."
As for the Fifty Shades clip (we'd show you the vid, but it's NSFW), as it turns out, the audio excerpts are actually the work of actor-comedian Josh Robert Thompson, who's famous for celebrity impressions including Matthew McConaughey, Robert De Niro and, yes, Morgan Freeman.
And here we thought it was part of his bucket list.