Actor Tom Cruise’s staff say widespread internet reports the film star has died at Northland’s luxury golf resort near Matauri Bay, Kauri Cliffs, are just a tasteless spoof.
Reports surfaced today which claimed the Top Gun hero had died after falling 20m off a cliff top at the course, The Sun reported in London.
The “tragedy” at Kauri Cliffs was claimed to have occurred while Cruise was filming a new movie. But the star — husband of Katie Holmes and father of three – is alive and well, said his baffled spokesman.
“This is completely not true,” Cruise’s publicist Jeff Raymond told E! News. “Tom is not in New Zealand nor has he been there recently. This is erroneous and unreliable internet garbage.”
It’s also unoriginal.
The bogus web report follows an identical hoax two years ago, which falsely claimed Tom Hanks had fallen to his death off the same cliff.
The untrue Hanks story was later attributed to fakeawish.com, a site that serves as a fake news generator and allows users to plug a celebrity’s name into made-up stories. A top option on the site today was to plug a male celebrity’s name into a “dies in New Zealand” article.
Meanwhile, Cruise is expected to appear — alive — in the audience tonight when Katie Holmes makes her opening night debut in All My Sons in a Broadway production.
NZPA
