The BBC erroneously announced that The Fall frontman Mark E Smith had passed away in a tweet posted at the weekend on his 60th birthday.
The tweet in question came from the BBC Music Twitter account and read “RIP Mark E Smith”, along with a sad emoji and an image of the music icon.
The mistake came on the singer’s 60th birthday, with a spokesperson for the BBC confirming that there had been a mix-up, saying in a statement: “This was a genuine human error and the message was posted by mistake and swiftly deleted. We apologise for the error.”
BBC tweeted 'RIP Mark E Smith' on his birthday when he's not actually dead. Poor Mark E Smith pic.twitter.com/9dlUX74wjp
— Karl Fletcher (@karlfletcher69) March 6, 2017
BBC Music later tweeted a similar message that instead read “Happy 60th Mark E Smith” along with a party-popper emoji. See that beneath.
Happy 60th Mark E Smith ? https://t.co/u7bM9Bpptr pic.twitter.com/wUHCSPpd43
— BBC Sounds (@BBCSounds) March 5, 2017
The Fall released their latest album ‘Sub-Lingual Tablet’ in 2015.
Mark E Smith spoke to NME that same year when he blamed Tony Blair for the lack of working-class people in music, stating that “there was always privilege in music, but nowadays you don’t have a chance in hell”.
“To be honest I said about 12 years ago all this was happening,” he said. “Blair started it. The posh dads don’t say to their kids any more, ‘Don’t be in a group.’ They see U2 and they’re saying, ‘Be in a group, make money.'”