Reba McEntire‘s fans weren’t the only ones devastated when a death hoax surrounding the flame-haired country queen spread across the web fast enough to become a trending topic. As it turns out, McEntire’s own nephew suffered panic attack when he caught wind of the virally spreading “news” that his aunt had plummeted to her death after falling from a mountain while filming in Austria.

While Reba herself was able to have a sense of humor about the fake story, posting a funny photo afterwards to prove that she was alive, not everyone in her family had a laugh. Her sister’s son Trevor was reduced to tears.

When appearing on ‘The Talk’ last Friday (March 30), Reba said (courtesy of Star Pulse), “First time I heard of it, my sister called me, my older sister Alice, and she said her son, Trevor, called her, just crying. And he said, ‘Ma is Ba OK?’ Because they call me Ba. And Alice said, ‘Well I guess, why?’ And he said, ‘Well I just walked into a Get-n-Go and these people were going, ‘Oh my god she died, she fell off a mountain.’”

McEntire continued, “And he was paying for his gas and then they said, ‘Oh man I just saw her in concert not too long ago.’ And he went, ‘Who you talking about?’ And they said, ‘Reba McEntire just got killed.’ He was devastated. He calls Alice just balling. And she said, ‘I’ll find out immediately.’ She called me and I said, ‘No I’m fine.’ And I had to walk him off the ledge.”

In addition to talking her nephew down from his devastation, McEntire is asking that this unfunny trend of death hoaxes be halted by those who purvey them on the web. “There are so many of those hoaxes that are just going around and I think it’s cruel. That’s not funny,” she said. It’s especially cruel for the hoax victim’s family members, as this case proves.

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