Michael Douglas’ ‘Near Death’ Hoax Slammed By Rep, Is ‘Clean’ Of Tongue Cancer

Actor Michael Douglas is doing well, despite prior reports. The star was “near death,” Radar Online claimed last week, but the story was a ruse, the actor’s rep told Gossip Cop, the website that famously dismantles celebrity rumors.

The website claimed Douglas’ tongue cancer returned, but Gossip Cop wrote Monday that in fact the "Fatal Attraction" actor is “clean” of cancer.

Radar Online had reported that Douglas, 71, supposedly took a trip to Bermuda do some “soul searching,” adding he quietly sold assets and updated his will. “Michael’s eyes welled up with tears as he revisited the paradise where his ancestors presided,” an insider told Radar Online. “He sadly gazed over his shoulder at the water, knowing he might never again see the place where he wants his ashes scattered.”

The actor, who is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, became religious. “He’s become more spiritual, ” said the source in the phony story. “He realizes with all his success that family is everything and most important. ”

Douglas was diagnosed with stage-4 tongue cancer in 2010. In January 2011, he was declared cancer-free.

Before then, he infamously insinuated his cancer came from having oral sex with women, which humiliated his wife. "It was one of those things … and I so regretted any embarrassment that it caused Catherine and her family," he told Event Magazine in June.

Though Zeta-Jones never addressed the controversy, she admitted she was shattered by Douglas’ diagnosis. "When I'm married to a man who has such a conviction for life … he fights to make the wrongs right. For the first time, he was fighting for his life," the "Chicago" star told the New York Daily News in 2014. "I was a mess. I'll be quite frank. I was a mess."

Neither Douglas, nor Zeta-Jones, has publicly responded to Radar Online’s false story. The publication has not issued a retraction or update, either.

Follow me on Twitter @mariamzzarella