Paul Walker reportedly dead at 40

[Mofoticon]

Paul Walker -- best known for his role in "The Fast and the Furious" movies -- died Saturday afternoon after a single-car accident and explosion in Southern California ... TMZ has learned.

The accident happened in Santa Clarita -- north of Los Angeles -- and according to multiple sources connected to Paul ... the actor was in a Porsche when the driver somehow lost control and slammed into a post or a tree ... and then the car burst into flames.

Several of our sources -- some who are still at the scene of the accident -- tell us Paul and another person in the car were killed. Law enforcement is still on the scene, and we're told the L.A. County Coroner's Office is on the way.

At this point, it's unclear what caused the accident, or who was behind the wheel when it happened.

Paul was 40 years old.

Sources close to Paul tell us he was in Santa Clarita for a car show to support the Philippines typhoon relief effort, and had been taking friends out for rides in his new Porsche GT. The accident happened during one of those test spins.

Story developing ...

http://www.tmz.com/2013/11/30/paul-walker-dead-dies-car-accident-fatal-fire-crash/

Stunning news...terrible for it to happen to anyone, let alone someone so young

RIP.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Mofoticon

[HC]

Terribly sad if it's true. Always enjoyed him in Joy Ride.

[Summers]

Fuck. That's horrible if true. And sick if fake.

[Lineker]

Very sad news.

[EddieG]

Oh fuck, that's horrible news.

[Summers]

Looking like a hoax at the moment. Hope it is.

[MalaCloudy Black]

From what I can find, law enforcement's reported that there was a car accident involving 2 people in Santa Clarita today. No names released yet, though.

[HC]

Hope it's fake. Seems too ironic, given the Fast and Furious movies. Maybe it was another Paul Walker and TMZ jumped on it. I don't know.

[EddieG]

I keep hearing hoax but no confirmation either way, think people are just spreading the hoax word because they want it to be a hoax.

[Summers]

It seems the speculation on the crash first started on TFW2005 forums:

So I work in Santa Clarita at an automotive performance shop and a good customer just came from Paul's shop, AE (Always Evolving) where they were having a car show. It seems Paul went for a ride in a guys Porsche and they ended up around a phone pole, the car burst onto flames and rumour has it Paul is dead. I hope he got it wrong but he insists it was Paul. I'm reluctant to post this being just hearsay, but the guy who informed us is a wealthy car enthusiast that just pulled up in his Maserati and nothing to gain from a lie, and has video on his phone of the burning car. If it does turn out to be true, damn... RIP Paul

http://jalopnik.com/fast-and-furious-star-paul-walker-reportedly-dead-in-ca-1474200748

That article has a bit of detail.

[HC]

I keep hearing hoax but no confirmation either way, think people are just spreading the hoax word because they want it to be a hoax.

Well, the only source thus far is TMZ. Not a lot of journalistic integrity to be found there. With the amount of hoaxes that spread like wildfire, I can't blame people for wanting to wait for a more reputable source.

And Summers, I totally read that as TEW2005 forums and was quite confused.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The website that most people have been pointing to as evidence that it's a hoax is a satire site that has multiple pages set up for celebrity death hoaxes that C&P the same article.

http://en.mediamass.net/people/peyton-manning/deathhoax.html

http://en.mediamass.net/people/paul-walker/deathhoax.html

[Pizza]

A lot of the hoax stuff is coming from a hoax that happened 2 days ago being confused with this story.

Edit: Or what Cloudy said.

[GoGo Yubari]

I keep hearing hoax but no confirmation either way, think people are just spreading the hoax word because they want it to be a hoax.

Well, the only source thus far is TMZ. Not a lot of journalistic integrity to be found there.

TMZ tends to break celebrity deaths first exactly because of that, though. The only time I remember they were actually wrong was Lil' Wayne.

[Mick]

What bothers me is there's nothing on mainstream news sites. If this happened this afternoon, they'd be all over it, right?

[Silva]

I keep hearing hoax but no confirmation either way, think people are just spreading the hoax word because they want it to be a hoax.

Well, the only source thus far is TMZ. Not a lot of journalistic integrity to be found there.

TMZ tends to break celebrity deaths first exactly because of that, though. The only time I remember they were actually wrong was Lil' Wayne.

I don't recall them actually reporting that he was dead, just near death. I could be wrong.

[GoGo Yubari]

Hitfix is reporting it now, they're respectable if not major. But they're not citing any major sources outside of TMZ.

EDIT: Yeah, it was "near death" in that case.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The TMZ article's been updated:

A rep for the actor confirms Paul died today in the crash after leaving a charity event.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2013/11/30/paul-walker-dead-dies-car-accident-fatal-fire-crash/#ixzz2mBmAfpgN

[HC]

Well, damn. Sucks it wasn't just some moronic hoax.

[Summers]

http://variety.com/2013/film/people-news/obituaries-people-news/paul-walker-dead-1200904389/

Claiming it's been confirmed to them.