A message posted on the Twitter pages of Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres saying the Grammy-winning star and the Emmy-winning hostess had died has been blamed on elusive online hackers.

According to The Associated Press, the fake messages were sent from Twitpic accounts belonging to Spears and DeGeneres prompting the service to be shut down on Sunday night.

Someone broke into Britney Spears’ Twitter account and left the following message:

Britney has passed today. It is a sad day for everyone. More news to come.

The post was later deleted.

Twitpic, the owners of a supplementary program used to allow members of Twitter to share photos, said hackers had exploited a “vulnerability” of the program.

The company said it was “implementing a fix immediately” and shut the service down for repairs.