News | May 24, 2021 04:41 AM EDT

Bob Dylan Sparks Death Rumors on 80th Birthday

By Alexandria Kim

Bob Dylan marked another milestone after he reached his 80th birthday.

On May 24, Dylan officially completed another decade as he finally turned 80. He, once again, extended another year to his ever-blooming career.

Several writers already sent him tribute messages online and greeted him with a happy birthday.

For instance, John Harris of The Guardian noted that the rock legend and his songs have grown older. Still, Dylan's capacity to bring hope and wisdom remains the same.

"Having listened to his music for 40 years and tried to soak up what it says, I think a lot of the answer boils down to two things: an unflinching existential honesty, and the humility that comes from it," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Mark Bannerman of ABC described Dylan as a man who "gave himself the right to be born over and over again."

Bob Dylan surely has a continuously growing career which started in 1961. Despite being an old man now, he still keeps on sharing his music with other people.

However, his supposed-to-be great day got affected by numerous death hoaxes in the past months, and his birthday was no exception.

Is Bob Dylan Dead?

On social networking sites, some users alleged that the rock singer was already dead. Specifically, on Twitter, they treated Dylan's birthday as his death day, with some even announced the rumor as if it was true.

One Twitter user said, "13yo: Is Bob Dylan dead? That's the tweet."

Another one wrote, "Bob Dylan is dead."

"Happy Bob Dylan is not actively dead day," another one added.

For what it's worth, the rock legend faced several death hoaxes in the past years. In 2018, Apple's Siri suffered from a bug as when iOS users asked her how old Dylan is, she would tell everyone that he already died on April 24, 2008, at the age of 66.

The app acted up again that Siri mistakenly claimed that John Travolta died in 2017 and Stan Lee died in July 2018 (five months before he actually died). The virtual assistant also claimed that Barbara Bush stood four feet tall when she was actually 5'8".

Meanwhile, MSNBC also once aired a report that Dylan passed away. It already issued an apology soon after it realized that they reported it wrong. Still, their apologies did not excuse them from getting called out online.