Hugh Hefner Death Hoax: Hefner Dead Rumors Latest in String of Fake Reports in 2014

This year witnessed a fair amount of reported death hoaxes involving celebrities. The latest victim was Hugh Hefner, the 88-year-old owner of Playboy Magazine and the infamous Playboy Mansion, who was rumored to have died recently.

The hoax around Hefner's death was carried by a fake site named NBCToday.co which pretended to be a subsidiary of NBC. The site claimed that on Dec. 28 the police were called to the Playboy Mansion where they found Hefner's body, alleging that he died of natural causes.

The Mirror said the site also featured statements from police officers who responded to the call and even provided a "look back at his career." After the report was posted on the fake site, it became viral with several social media sites picking up the fake story.

On Facebook, the fake story was shared about 300,000 times and 77,000 users clicked "Like" to the story, according to the Mirror. On Twitter the story garnered at least 1,800 shares in just one day.

Hefner eventually took to his Twitter account and debunked the story by retweeting a fan's comment about his death and stating that the "Internet was an odd place sometimes."

Hefner's wife Crystal then went on to tweet a picture of him at movie night at the Playboy Mansion. This photo was then retweeted by Hefner on his Twitter account. He also noted that he was seeing "American Sniper" at the Playboy Mansion that day. Crystal Hefner also tweeted a quote debunking the rumor, saying that ""A lie can run around the world before the truth has got it's boots on. # QuoteOfTheDay."

The Hefner death hoax was just one of several death hoaxes that appeared online this year. Among the many bizarre ones that have hit the Internet were the fake death stories of Zayn Malik, Miley Cyrus and Macaulay Culkin.