Britney Spears Twitter Hacked, Claims She's Dead

Britney Spears's camp is trying to get the word out today - Britney Spears is alive. Rumors to the contrary began when a suspicious tweet was posted on the singer's Twitter account.

The Sunday tweet simply said, "Britney has passed today. It is a sad day for everyone. More news to come."

In a week that has been wrought with celebrity deaths including Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays and Ed McMahon, this kind of a prank is just not funny.

The post was made by a hack into the pop singer's Twitpic account, a site that posts photos and tweets directly to Twitter. Twitpic is a program that allows users of Twitter to share photographs. It is not owned by Twitter Inc.

Twitpic Inc. said to disregard a message from Spears's account that incorrectly said the singer had died, and they were "implementing a fix immediately."

It is not yet clear how Spears's account was hacked, or whom might have done it.