Actress Tanya Roberts’ publicist and partner now say she is still alive — after announcing her death on Sunday.
A day after releasing a statement saying that the 65-year-old former Bond girl had died, her rep Mike Pingel on Monday made the stunning admission that he had been mistaken.
The rep said Roberts’ longtime partner, Lance O’Brien, had informed him of her passing at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
She’d been hospitalized there since Christmas Eve, when she collapsed at home after walking her dog, Pingel said.
Pingel told TMZ that O’Brien got a call from the hospital on Monday morning saying Roberts was actually alive. Roberts remained in the ICU in “dire” condition as of Monday morning, Pingel told Variety.
It’s unclear how the mistake occurred.
Inside Edition on Monday said one of its reporters was actually interviewing O’Brien when he appeared to get a phone call saying the “That 70s Show” actress was alive.
“Now you’re telling me that she’s alive?” O’Brien says in a video published by the outlet.
“The hospital is telling me she is alive. They are calling me from the ICU team,” he adds.
Hospital staff had previously told him that Roberts “had no hope to live,” O’Brien said.
While the star did not have COVID-19, she was placed on a ventilator because she was struggling to breathe, according to O’Brien — who said he wasn’t allowed to visit Roberts because of coronavirus protocols, until what he thought were her final moments.
“As I held her in her last moments, she opened her eyes,” he told TMZ on Sunday. “I was able to see her beautiful eyes one last time. Tanya had the most beautiful eyes.”
Neither Pingel nor O’Brien immediately returned messages from The Post on Monday.
Other than her role on “That 70s Show” as Donna Pinciotti’s mom Midge, Roberts was known for her part as Stacey Sutton in the 1985 007 flick “A View to a Kill.”
The New York-native also appeared on the TV show “Charlie’s Angels” for its final season in 1980-1981.
She was previously married to actor Barry Roberts, who died at 60 in 2006.
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy
http://pagesix.com/2021/01/04/publicist-now-says-tanya-roberts-is-alive-after-all-report
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