Is Jack Black Dead? Tenacious D Frontman Latest Victim of Online Death Hoax

Beloved actor and comedian Jack Black might be fresh off the success of last year's big-screen Goosebumps adaptation and this spring's Kung Fu Panda 3, but that doesn't mean he's safe from one of the Internet's most traditional pranks: the celebrity death hoax. Who killed off the Tenacious D frontman online?

According to In Touch Weekly, the confusion began last weekend, when Tenacious D's Twitter account posted messages of condolences regarding Black, announcing the School of Rock actor had passed away at age 46 from unknown causes. Of course, this prompted concerned fans to get worried and express their sadness at the announcement -- but, of course, the news ended up being fake.

By Sunday afternoon, the original tweets claiming Black had died had been deleted. The band said the Twitter account had been hacked and that the whole thing had in fact been a "sick 'prank.'" John Konesky, who plays guitar in the Grammy Award-winning band created by Black and Kyle Gass, also said on the social network that Black was perfectly all right.

@RealTenaciousD 's Twitter feed was hacked. Than shit ain't true! They're working on fixing it!

— John Konesky (@JKonesky) 5 June 2016

WE had our Twitter account hacked. We can assure you that Jack is ALIVE and WELL and that this was a sick "prank". — Tenacious D (@RealTenaciousD) June 5, 2016

This isn't the first time Black has been a victim of celebrity death hoaxes: Back in 2011, "news" that he'd fallen to his death went viral, and a similar 2014 story claimed he'd lost his life to a stroke. The actor is currently on a European tour with his band, and he has two films scheduled for release in the next couple of years, including a sequel of Jumanji.

According to Consequence of Sound, Tenacious D is just the latest victim in a series of hacks to celebrities' social media accounts: last Sunday alone, other bands hacked included Tame Impala and Bon Iver, plus legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Last week, pop star Katy Perry's Twitter account was also hacked.

BBC reports that the recent wave of celebrity Twitter hacks (which has also included Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg as well as reality star and model Kylie Jenner) could perhaps come from how last month over 100 million passwords for LinkedIn accounts were advertised for sale last month, taken from a security breach from years back -- though it sounds strange that these people have kept the same passwords for such a long time.

On the other hand, celebrity death hoaxes are almost as old as the Internet, and there's news of someone famous "dying" every few months. Past victims have included Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, Rocky himself Sylvester Stallone and even screen legend Robert Redford.