'Rowan Atkinson Dead' Tweet Was A Hoax. Twitter Exhales

New Delhi: British actor Rowan Atkinson, adored universally as the hilariously clueless Mr Bean, was reported dead over the weekend. Relax - it was a hoax, and a very elaborate one at that. A fake Twitter account, set up to look like Fox News' handle, claimed that Mr Atkinson had died in a car crash, reported The Sun. The tweet read: "FOX BREAKING NEWS : Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) died at 58 after car accident. -March 18, 2017," The Sun reported. Rowan Atkinson is actually 62 - and very much alive. The fake tweet went viral and was shared and liked more than 300,000 times, reported The Sun. Mr Atkinson's fans and followers posted heartbroken messages online until website Hoax Alert debunked the story as false.

Hoax Alert stated: "Celebrity death hoaxes are nothing new on the internet yet this one is special in that it managed to be liked/shared over 300,000 times in a short period of time by employing some devious technical tricks. The first one is the video player embedded in the site. At first sight this is just a normal YouTube video from a Fox News broadcast (which is about a death but not about Rowan Atkinson)."

This announcement was swiftly followed by celebratory tweets such as this:
 

Rowan Atkinson, #MrBean , responds to false reports of his death. #LaughOn pic.twitter.com/3UXHaHM3DJ

— Bamasaint (@BAMA_NOLA) March 18, 2017

Rowan Atkinson was also the target of a death hoax in 2016, after a Facebook page titled 'R.I.P. Rowan Atkinson' claimed that the actor was found unconscious at his home in San Francisco.

Several celebrities have found reports of their deaths greatly exaggerated - Amitabh Bachchan, wrestler John Cena and actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan have also been targets of death hoaxes.

Rowan Atkinson, also known for the Johnny English films, is currently in China for the premiere of his upcoming film Top Funny Comedian: The Movie, in which he makes a cameo appearance as Mr Bean. The film is set in Macau and Mr Bean shows up with an iPhone, which he uses to take photos of sculptures. Needless to say, this innocuous pursuit gets him into trouble. Mr Atkinson hasn't been seen in a leading role on the big screen since 2011's Johnny English Reborn - he now stars as the lead character on TV series Maigret.