#FakeNews: The Internet Is Flipping Out That Ian McKellen Died! (He’s Alive.)

Ian McKellan at the New York premiere of ‘Beauty And The Beast’ in March 13, 2017.

Actor Sir Ian McKellen IS alive, despite frenzied reports that he had he passed away.

People have been circulating a story that he died on Tuesday, October 24, but it’s fake news. McKellen is currently in a performance of King Lear at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester, England.

A report from the Mail Online claimed,

“A spokesperson for Ian McKellen on Tuesday says the English actor has died. He was 78. In a statement, publicist Rose Ward says McKellen died of cardiac arrest.

‘He had been fighting pneumonia, which caused him to be hospitalised some months ago and was responding to treatment. His publicist said cause of his death is probable an acute coronary event, due to natural causes. He had pre-existing medical conditions, Ward said.’”

But Millie from the Minerva Theatre said that he’ll be performing there and told Gay Star News,

“Ian is very much alive and kicking.”

The Daily Mail reviewed McKellan’s performance in King Lear and said,

“It’s often said that by the time you are old enough to play Shakespeare’s King Lear, you’re past it…. Not Sir Ian McKellen.

A decade ago he was magnificent in Sir Trevor Nunn’s gorgeously extravagant if over-embellished Royal Shakespeare Company production. Now aged 78, he’s an older if no wiser Lear in Jonathan Munby’s clear, thoughtful, terrifically well-paced revival. Hair thinner and greyer, he’s plumper but still every inch the king, and then some.”

McKellen of course, played the iconic roles of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies and Magneto in the original X-Men as well as scores of theatre productions.

We’re glad to hear he’s still with us and working.