Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated 5.49am
ICONIC MUSICIAN AND singer Tom Petty has died.
He was 66.
After initially being reported by US media as having died, before later reports said he was “clinging to life”, the news that Petty had died following a cardiac arrest was confirmed in the early hours this morning.
“He died peacefully at 20:40 Pacific time (03:40 GMT Tuesday) surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends,” said his long-time manager Tony Dimitriades.
The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers frontman was rushed to hospital on Sunday, after he was found unresponsive and in full cardiac arrest.
News of Petty’s death was first reported by CBS News, which quoted the Los Angeles Police Department.
The news was also reported by Variety, quoting an unnamed source.
The LAPD then, however, tweeted that this information was “inadvertently provided to some media sources”.
An ambulance rushed to his home in Malibu, California, and he was taken to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital, TMZ reports. That outlet also reported that he had been taken off life support.
Petty had just finished up a 40th anniversary tour with his band last month, playing three concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. Variety reported that he had been due to play two dates in New York this November, while a number of shows had been called off due to laryngitis.
He told Rolling Stone that the tour would be his “last trip around the country”, but said that he was unlikely to quit performing altogether.
Born in Florida on 20 October 1950, Petty got an international audience when his band the Heartbreakers made it big with their 1979 album Damn The Torpedoes.
The group would eventually go on to have eight top-10 albums over their career, with their 1993 Greatest Hits album selling in excess of 10 million copies.
In 2002, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Petty also was a co-founder of supergroup the Travelling Wilburys alongside George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan.
Over the course of his career, Petty sold millions of albums and became iconic for hits such as Won’t Back Down, Free Fallin’ and You Don’t Know How It Feels.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I am off to bed, I will leave ye to it!
I have a question and I know it’s more than a bit ridiculous. Do people really still call dresses ‘frocks’? I’m not blaming you Sinead cos this word is used all the time and I bet it’ll be used on the Sky News Oscar coverage tomorrow! I just thought it was a very 1980s term :-)
PS. I’m aware question correctly indicates I don’t have a social life!
Hi mister. I think we all just missed the word – and it seems appropriate to call the creations something more than just mere dress.
Sure, we’re all 80s kids at heart.
I love the oscars so I can download all the free screeners !
Excellent. Please keep all reports of J-laws luminosity as free and flowing as her impossibly radiant Hair.
Aw she’s stooping to speak to Seacrest, bless.
I want a Tom Forde tux.
I hear they’re not black , but rather, very very very very very very very very dark blue.
Watching twilight…
Is it on the telly-box fellow Journites?
For those wondering where they can watch the Oscars, the red-carpet coverage is on E! (501 on UPC and 151 on Sky). The ceremony is on Sky Oscars. If you can’t tune in, we’ll be bringing you as many images as possible.
The Red Carpet is also on Sky Living and Sky Oscars from 11.30. Does anyone know which Red carpet Coverage would be better?
Anne Hathaway’s bust seams are sooo unfortunate. She looks like she’s wearing comedy breasts, yikes.
Samantha Barks is incredible!
Agreed, yet our journo calls her dress inappropriate! Eh… okay!!
I said hot too! Just the Oscar gowns are usually a bit more, eh, demure.
Dont back pedal…. You said inappropriate, this made you sound like an aul wan :)
If Resse Witherspoon went brunette and moved to Monaghan she’d be Charlene McKenna. It cannot be unseen.
Thanks for the shout out ladies but I’m a lady myself! Loving your work though. Sam(antha)
Bring it on. Can’t wait for t’oscars.
Watching E! But no doubt will give up before it starts so will read back tomorrow.
Disgrace that cloud atlas didn’t get a single nom. Oscars are a farce.
Did Cloud Atlas come out in time to be nominated? I didn’t think that it had tbh.
Next year, maybe
It’s out since October in the USA so it won’t be nominated next time, for a movie to qualify for nomination the movie must be screened at least 1 time in the LA district before midnight December 31st, my money is on the academy having the balls to name Zero Dark Thirty as best film
It’s a shame the Hardy Bucks didn’t release their film in time to make the nominations. It would have been great to see them on the red carpet.
There a cert to win all the razzies next year
Load of bollix…who cares. We have more things to worry about that this kind of crap !
Boo! Hiss!
ah Michael why bother your hole to leave a negative, obscene comment on a light-hearted article when you could just have easily posted a humorous or even mundane yet non-offensive contribution, ya miserable oul shitebag : )
I am loving the bitchy look of the woman behind Helena Bonham Carter!
Adele is such a beautiful women but that dress is horrendous. Does nothing for her! Any pics of Anne Hathaway?
Adele, sadly, doesn’t seem to have any dress sense. This one, though, is better than the dress she wore at the BAFTAs. The pattern on that did absolutely nothing for her. She has a beautiful face.
They’re already starting on the Meryl Streep references!!
Hated Anne Hathaways dress …..it looks like a slap ….. So miserable!
Sorry … Should read ‘ slip’ ……
have your say