Britney Spears’ rep confirmed she is “alive and well” after someone hacked one of Sony Music’s Twitter accounts, tweeting that the pop superstar had died.
“Britney Spears is alive and well, her rep tells CNN,” CNN reporter AnneClaire Stapleton tweeted on Monday, December 26. “It appears @SonyMusicGlobal erroneously tweeted her death. Sony rep says no comment.”
In the early hours of Monday morning, Sony Music Global’s verified Twitter account falsely announced that Spears, 35, had passed away. “RIP @britneyspears #RIPBritney 1981-2016,” the account tweeted to its 613,000 followers.
The account then tweeted, “britney spears is dead by accident! we will tell you more soon,” and received more than 650 retweets within minutes.
Nobel winner Bob Dylan’s Twitter account seemed to be hacked too, as his verified profile oddly paid tribute to the “Slumber Party” singer after Sony — which owns Spears’ record label, RCA — tweeted the fake news. “Rest in peace @britneyspears,” read the now-deleted tweet.
Both of Sony Music Global’s tweets about Spears have been removed from their Twitter account as well. The company responded to the hack in a tweet that has also been deleted: “we saw a new IP logged in to the account a few minutes ago and the tweet is posted by a new IP so @britneyspears is still alive #OurMine.”
One day before the internet hoax, Spears celebrated Christmas with her family. The Grammy winner took to Instagram on Sunday, December 25, to share a video of her sons, Sean Preston, 11, and Jayden James, 10, and nieces, Maddie, 8, and Lexie, 6, enjoying the holiday outdoors at an undisclosed locale.
“Some good hunting and zip lining for the holidays!” she captioned the clip. “Merry Christmas!! 🎄”
