#HNNShowbiz Fake TMZ site spreads rumours that Wayne Knight died.

Fans were temporarily devastated on Sunday after a rumour ignited on Twitter that Seinfeld favourite Wayne Knight was dead.

However, the 58-year-old funnyman took to Twitter to refute the death hoax, which claimed he died in a car crash, and even poked fun at the fact that he was trending on the social networking site only due to his alleged death.

He wrote: 'Some of you will be glad to hear this, others strangely disappointed, but….I am alive and well!

'Does someone have to DIE to trend? Geez! Thanks for all the love everybody. I didn’t know you cared. Glad to be breathing!'

The erroneous report appears to have come from a website called TMZ.today, which models itself on but is not affiliated with TMZ.com.

An article on the site read: 'Actor Wayne Knight, better known to most for playing one of the most indelible roles on NBC's 'Seinfeld' as the character 'Newman' is dead and two other passengers are critically injured after their vehicle slammed into a disabled semi-tractor-trailer late Saturday night along Route 446 near the Pennsylvania-New York state border in Eldred Township.'

The elaborate but ultimately fake hoax contained details of fictitious crash that included its location, the names of drivers, the hospitals and police agencies involved.

Devastated fans soon took to Twitter to share their sorrow before Wayne quickly set the story straight.

He is not the only star to be the victim of such a hoax with celebrities including Usher, Charlie Sheen and Brad Pitt all being forced to deny they had met an early demise at one stage or another.

In 2012, Usher, 35, tweeted a sweaty, shirtless photograph of himself today after internet hoax rumours surfaced that he had died in a car crash.

He wrote on his Twitter page: 'I must've died and went to heaven...Alive and cold kickin a**!!'
Usher added: 'Never scared, never dead...Just #Lookin 4 myself. Livin legend!' 

I also died on a fake Facebook page with haters. Facebook has not taken this page down yet. The builder DIED last week in a hit and run. Amazing how life gets you for evil.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2582208/Seinfeld-star-Wayne-Knight-takes-Twitter-refute-death-hoax-rumours.html#ixzz2wAFfmAHk
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