‘Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith suicide’ explained

A rumour that Jaclyn Smith, the former Charlie's Angels star, was airlifted to hospital with a self-inclicted gunshot wound to the head, is now known to be false. And it appears that the rumour started with the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton misunderstanding a local newspaper report written in Spanish - despite his Cuban ancestory.

As the rumour spread across the internet faster than a Californian bushfire, Smith's publicist Jay Schwartz finally told the media yesterday that the 61-year-old actress was "alive and well in Los Angeles... I spoke to her this morning."

The facts are not as yet totally clear but it seems there was an accident and that the victim was Sandra Franklin, Smith's stunt double.

El Heraldo, a newspaper covering the Islas de la Bahia islands off the coast of Honduras where Smith has a holiday home, reported that Franklin had been airlifted to a hospital in San Pedro Sula, with a gunshot wound to her head and was in critical condition.

Perez Hilton somehow missed that it was Smith's "doble" who had "se accidenta en Honduras".

As one Charlie's Angels fan commented on El Heraldo's story page: "perez hilton is a dumbass and cannot read that it says the DOUBLE! not jaclyn smith. you made me tear for nothing! and you call yourself spanish perez?"

It is not yet clear whether Sandra Franklin is out of danger, nor how she came to be injured.

The scare came three months after Smith's Charlie's Angels co-star Farrah Fawcett died in Los Angeles at 62 after a long battle with cancer. ·