Patrick Swayze Dead? Not So Fast

By Jessica Madison on May 19th, 2009

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Earlier today the twitter community, also known as the twitter-verse (don’t ask), exploded with the news of Patrick Swayze’s death. Passing from tweet to tweet, hundreds and thousands of twitter users across the world hurried to proclaim the death of the 56-year-old Dirty Dancing star in short 140 character messages, one even going so far as to change his Wikipedia page. The news however, was quickly denied by Swayze’s representatives, who said the actor was doing just fine. And that seems to be that.

That said, it wouldn’t be that surprising if the news ended up being true. Patrick Swayze has been battling pancreatic cancer for over a year now and when doctors diagnosed him in early 2008 he was said to have had a 5% chance of surviving more than 5 years.

Still, until a news outlet picks up the story or official word comes out, I’d leave this story as little more than rumor. Twitter may be good for a lot of things (following Shaq for one), but when it comes to breaking news I’d still rely on other sources, because while Twitter gives a story speed, it doesn’t always give it credibility.