TORONTO - Gordon Lightfoot says he's very much alive, despite online reports of his death that spread like wildfire Thursday afternoon.
"I'm fine, everything is good. I don't know where it comes from. It seems like a bit of a hoax or something," the folk icon told all-news station CP24.
"I was quite surprised to hear (it) myself."
He went on to joke: "I haven't had so much airplay on my music now for weeks."
The Canwest news service posted a report early Thursday afternoon saying Lightfoot had died and it was quickly picked up all over the Internet.
A spokesman for Canwest did not immediately return calls for comment.
Bernie Fiedler, Lightfoot's publicist, said the singer was in a dentist's chair in Toronto when the rumours began to spread.
"We've been besieged by phone calls, it's been a prank, somewhere over Twitter ... as far as we can think," said Fiedler.
Lightfoot has had health problems in recent years. He suffered a ruptured artery in his stomach in 2002.
