THE latest viral trend setting the internet alight is that Red Dwarf star Craig Charles has died.
Fortunately, the star himself took to Twitter to confirm "I’m here I’m still alive can’t you hear me I’m alive HELP!!!!".
Why is 'Craig Charles dead' trending?
It seems to be the way of the internet nowadays, somebody start a Tweet trending and it gets blown out of all proportion.
Every now and again, a different celebrity is alleged to have died, with the latest being Craig Charles.
In the past, many celebrities have had to justify to their followers and the Twitter-sphere that they are in fact, alive and well.
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Once "50-Cent is dead" started trending and even had a Facebook page set up with almost 1m followers within hours.
It even went into elaborate detail as to what had happened and to so many, it seemed very believable.
You wonder what the people who spend the time creating these pages are getting out of it, stealing people's data or information as they join the page could be one option.
As for the Twitter rumours, we may never know what motivates people into starting these chains.
What have people said about Why is 'Craig Charles dead' trending?
Users on Twitter were shocked by the alleged news of the former Red Dwarf star.
One user @RosmaryN posted "RIP Craig. My ex-husband shouted 'smeg-head' once at him in the street. He did not take too kindly to it. But still. Very sad that he's died. An icon. xx"
This spurred a reply from Helen Weatherhead who is the lead producer of Craig Charles' afternoon show on BBC Radio 6 Music: @Helen_ECW "I'm sitting next to him Rosmary, he's definitely still with us x"
@RosmaryN was still not convinced replying "I'm sorry but I'm not sure I can trust you on this. Just a stranger on the internet. I'll stick to what I know for now."
Helen then shared a link to his BBC Radio 6 Music show and stated how he is live on air at this very moment but this was not enough to convince the Twitter user with someone eventually copying in Craig Charles himself into the conversations.
He replied @CCfunkandsoul "Rosemary I'm here I'm still alive can't you hear me I'm alive HELP!!!!"
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Who is Craig Charles?
Best known for playing the part of Lister on Red Dwarf, Craig Charles starred in all 74 episodes of the hit TV show.
He has also been the voice of such shows as Robot Wars, Takeshi's Castle and Ninja Warrior.
Craig spent 10 years treading the cobbles of Coronation Street as character Lloyd Mullaney and also appeared in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here before he had to withdraw due to personal reasons.
Currently, aside from his radio work and gigging with Craig Charles Funk and Soul Club, he has his own show on Sky History called Craig Charles: UFO Conspiracies.
