Jean Claude Van Damme three years ago

The only ancient action movie hero noticeably missing from Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, Jean Claude “Damn Good” Van Damme was widely reported as having suffered a heart attack on Tuesday, taken directly to a New Orleans hospital where his new film Weapon was shut down.

When Mark Twain said that a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get its boots on, the fastest thing was the telegraph and steam locomotive.

A lie told today will become the truth in a tenth of a second and last for an entire news cycle.

“Hours ago, I read a rumor online about me suffering heart attack!!,” Van Damme blogged, “Please, do not believe all what you read from rumors on any unofficial JCVD sites.  Jean-Claude Van Damme is 100% healthy, training well for taking the fight and sending his fans & friends much love.”

The story is literally changing by the moment on internet sites, especially VanDammeFan.net.  Most interesting that too much news at one time only obscures the truth.

The latest is that Van Damme suffered some pain in his chest and was taken to a doctor for a check up where a heart attack was not diagnosed.

Van Damme has had overreaching blessings and curses in his half century.  Among the dark side was his ten grand a week cocaine habit, his fight with bipolar disorder, depression, his four failed marriages where he found himself “sleeping on the street and starving in L.A.,” he told The Sun last year.

Van Damme used much of the horrific side his life as inspiration for JCVD two years ago, where Time magazine (previously no fan of The Muscles from Brussels) said “He deserves not a black belt, but an Oscar.”