Last Updated: 18 Mar 2010

Johnny Depp death hoax

Over the last 18 months a weird trend has emerged - celebrity death hoaxes, usually starting on Twitter.

It's happened to Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus, and the latest victim to this sick joke is Johhny Depp.

First of all there was a posting on Twitter saying, 'RIP Johnny Depp'.

Next an American blog carried a still from the CNN website that showed the wreckage of a car with the headline 'Johnny Depp dies after fatal car crash.'

But it later emerged that the CNN website had been hacked.

What a terrible thing to do - why would someoen go to the bother of hacking a news website just to pull a 'joke' on Johnny Depp? What about the distress this could have caused his family?