Sinbad Laughs Off False Death Reports

Zap2It.com | March 16, 2007

Sinbad

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There was no heart attack, but he did get a shock

Sinbad has joined the ranks of Mark Twain. Like the acclaimed 19th century author, reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

The comedian's death was reported on online research tool Wikipedia last Saturday (March 10), but didn't come to his attention until his daughter called to tell him.

According to media reports, a flurry of emails, calls and text messages started pouring in to mourn him and started up again later in the day when the Wikipedia entry was updated to claim that the cause of death was a heart attack.

Sinbad, nee David Adkins, was amused by the whole affair, a wrote it off as "commonplace" now that the Internet has become so accessible to everyone. Wikipedia, a free online Encyclopedia, is an research tool that its user community has the freedom to edit at will. While this has been a boon for fans who can input obscure information about their obsessions, the fact-checking on the site isn't always able to keep up.

Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" mocked the site's "wikiality," which he defined as "truth by consensus" and urged the viewers to create their own reality by banding together to change the "elephant" page to state that the number of African elephants had tripled in the last six months. The suggestion resulted in vandalism of Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa.

As a result, Wikipedia had to restrict the edits by anonymous and newly created users. In Sinbad's case, his page currently includes the following message: "This page has been temporarily protected from editing to deal with vandalism."

Sinbad is currently doing standup on the road. His film credits include "Necessary Roughness," "Conheads," "Houseguest," "First Kid" and "Jingle All the Way." On the small screen, he had a recurring role on "A Different World" and appeared on "Cosby," "Moesha" and "Resurrection Blvd."