Rumors of Neil Tennant's death are greatly exaggerated

By August Brown

Jan. 14, 2013 12 AM PT

Share via
- Email
- Facebook
- X
- LinkedIn
- Threads
- Reddit
- WhatsApp

This post has been updated. See below for details.

On Sunday night, fans of the pioneering U.K. electro-pop dup Pet Shop Boys went into panic mode after some shady online reports suggested the group’s singer Neil Tennant had died in a car crash.

The rumors seem to have begun with a story from Global Associated News, a prank page where users can plug in a public figure’s name and info and the site will generate a convincing enough-to-casual-observers news report about their death. The site had published previously widespread hoaxes about the deaths of Tiger Woods, Usher and others.

Well, a fairly authoritative source on the vitality of Tennant checked in on Twitter to squash the rumors -- the man himself.

[UPDATE: Tennant has posted on the official Pet Shop Boys page that, while it’s true that he did not die in a car crash, the Twitter handle credited to him initially denying his death was a false account. “Talk about ironic... A fake story that I’ve died in a car crash has been posted on a “prank” website and then denied on Twitter by someone pretending to be me. Neil x (Back in the studio tomorrow.) ]”

In addition to Tennant not dying, it’s been a good run of luck for Pet Shop Boys musically, having released the lauded album “Elysium” last year and with a 2013 tour in store. Indeed, if Tennant is asking some existential questions about his mortality right now, he’s already got a great soundtrack for it.

ALSO:

Live: Yeah Yeah Yeahs are positively explosive

Black Sabbath to release new album ‘13’ in June

Kesha quits job, parties with plushies in new video