Tom Petty’s daughter Kimberly Violette has hit out at media reports surrounding her father’s death, in a furious social media post.
The American rock legend died in a Los Angeles hospital on Monday (2 October) evening at the age of 66, after being found unconscious at his home earlier that day.
However, in the hours before his death, various media outlets incorrectly reported that he had already died, when TMZ claimed that he had been taken off life support, prompting an angry response from his daughter on Instagram.
Singling out one such outlet in particular [Rolling Stone], she wrote: “My dad is not dead yet but your fucking magazine is.”
Accusing them of doing “zero research” and having a “Trump vibe”, she continued: “How dare you report that my father has died just to get press... I will fucking shit down your throat and your family’s.
“This is my father not a celebrity. An artist and human being. Fuck you.”
Since the news broke of his death, Kimberly Violette has followed her post with a string of Instagram tributes, sharing some of her favourite memories of her father.
In life, Tom was best known as the lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The band turned out over a dozen studio albums and a steady string of hits over the course of their decades-spanning career, which included ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’, ‘Refugee’, ‘Free Fallin’ and ‘American Girl’.
Following his death, a number of big names from the world of music have been paying tribute, including Mick Jagger, Coldplay and his former bandmate Bob Dylan.