CeeLo Green had fans praying for him when footage of a mobile phone exploding in his face went viral. Turns out it was all a gag.
Surveillance footage posted to Instagram showed the 42-year-old star inside a music studio talking on his phone before it exploded and he collapsed on the ground.
Fans quickly turned to social media to express their shock at the footage, and to post messages of support for the Crazy singer.
But Green explained via Facebook that the footage was a hoax filmed as part of an upcoming video project.
"I just want to let everybody know that I am alive, that I'm well, and I'm okay. Truthfully, I'm really upset that anybody had to be emotionally disturbed by what they saw today," he said.
"What you saw today was a clip from a smaller video that we were shooting for a new project I'm doing called Gnarly Davidson. It's supposed to set up [...] and introduce the new character identity.
"I want to thank everybody for their love and support and concern."
Green had previously spoken about the project and described it as a solo mixtape that would sound similar to that of Gnarls Barkley.
"It's really cool," he said in an interview a few months ago. "It will definitely put you in the space, it's very Gnarls-esque sonically and instrumentally."
Before Green explained the situation, celebrities had started to contact him on Twitter to make sure he was OK.
And once fans found out it was a hoax, the messages of support soon turned into complaints that they'd been duped.
- With news.com.au
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