Contrary to rumors inadvertently started by an unfortunate CNN headline, actor Michael J. Fox is most decidedly not dead, his rep confirmed Wednesday.

“Michael is doing great,” his rep told TMZ. “He was at PaleyFest yesterday. He was on stage and was giving interviews.”

Public confusion rippled across the internet after CNN published an article and accompanying video, “Remembering the life of actor Michael J. Fox,” that got people wondering if the “Back to the Future” and “Family Ties” star had died. The network took it down almost immediately, but not before at least some people saw it, to their shock. The narration talked about Fox in the past tense and looked back on his life and work over the years.

“The package was published in error,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement obtained by Entertainment Weekly. “We have removed it from our platforms and send our apologies to Michael J. Fox and his family.”

Fox not only crashed Paleyfest LA on Tuesday night looking very much alive, but he also agreed to do a fourth season of “Shrinking,” according to entertainment website Gold Derby.

He joined showrunner and co-creator Bill Lawrence, co-creator and star Jason Segel, and cast members Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams, Michael Urie, Luke Tennie, Christa Miller, Lukita Maxwell and Ted McGinley onstage as they participated in a panel after a screening of the Season 3 finale. His appearance was a surprise even to his colleagues, who stood up and applauded enthusiastically as the audience whooped and hollered.

Near the end of the discussion, Lawrence asked Fox whether he’d be up for doing a fourth season, and Fox jumped at the chance.

“I would love to do it; it would be my honor,” he replied.

Fox, 64, has worked for decades with Parkinson’s disease, which he was diagnosed with at age 29 in the early 1990s but kept private until 1998. Two years later he established the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which has raised more than $2 billion to date. He opened up about his experiences in the 2023 documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.”

He has previously portrayed characters with Parkinson’s-like afflictions, as with his recurring character on CBS’s “The Good Wife” — manipulative, coldly calculating defense attorney Louis Canning, who would do anything to win and who was subject to random, involuntary movements that mimicked a Parkinson’s symptom. Fox said the role let him “prove that disabled people can be a--holes, too,” as he told The Hollywood Reporter back in 2016.

In several guest appearances during season 3 of “Shrinking,” Fox played Gary, a character with Parkinson’s whose therapist, Harrison Ford’s Dr. Paul Rhoades, has it too.

The role brought him out of a self-imposed five-year hiatus that began when he announced his retirement in 2020. At the time he didn’t rule out returning to acting if the right role presented itself.

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