Mystery supposedly surrounds Kylie Minogue's health after a British newspaper ran reports about her cancelling an upcoming world tour, a claim which her record company has been quick to scotch.

According to an article in today's Daily Mail, the pop star "has cancelled her world tour over fears that it could damage her health." Apparently the singer, who was succesfully treated for breast cancer after being diagnosed with the disease in 2005, told the paper, "The tour is not going to happen, it is far too soon. I can't do it next year. It kind of breaks my heart because that is what I'm in this business for."

The story has also surfaced in other papers and reports on Australian TV today have even stated that she is in fact too ill to even plan a tour. It truly is a wraught time for Kylie fans. Except that, apparently, it isn't.

"We haven't got a clue where the Daily Mail got their story from. It's completely false. Kylie has not been told by her doctors that touring 'could seriously harm her health'. She has made no comments to the paper", says Murray Chalmers, Kylie's UK press officer.

"It's quite the opposite. She is planning on touring. And I don't think that the papers understand the implications of this story. There are deals on the table. This type of misinformation can jeapordise a lot of significant things. The matter is currently with our lawyers."

Damaging as the mistaken reports might be, however, Kylie should take comfort that she has not been prematurely killed off. Sir Paul "Paul Is Dead" McCartney is the patron saint of the celebrity death hoax, after it was famously rumoured he had been killed in a car accident and had been replaced with a look-alike. He eventually made a statement to Life Magazine in 1968. "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," he said, paraphrasing Mark Twain who was wrongly reported dead in 1897, "However, if I was dead, I'm sure I'd be the last to know."

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