The 66 year old musician was taken off life support following a heart attack on Sunday night.

UPDATE #1: Conflicting reports on Tom Petty’s death have surfaced since this post went live. CBS News initially claimed to have confirmed Petty’s passing with Los Angeles police. LAPD has since denied knowing anything about the situation. TMZ reports “Sources tell us at 10:30 Monday morning a chaplain was called to Tom’s hospital room. We’re told the family has a do not resuscitate order on Tom. The singer is not expected to live throughout the day, but he’s still clinging to life. A report that the LAPD confirmed the singer’s death is inaccurate — the L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. handled the emergency.”

ORIGINAL POST: The worst possible outcome to the news of Tom Petty being found unconscious in full cardiac rest has become reality. After reporting that after Petty got to the hospital he had no brain activity and a decision was made to pull life support, CBS News has now confirmed (via Los Angeles police) that the rock legend has died.

There are legitimately no words we could write to summarize the impact or importance Tom Petty made on the not just music, but pop culture as a whole. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were responsible for dozens of now iconic songs over their forty-year career, including “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “Free Fallin,” “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” “Learning To Fly,” “Refugee,” and “Don’t Do Me Like That”.

Petty’s last performance took place at the Hollywood Bowl in late September. The show was the finale to a massive summer tour that found Petty and The Heartbreakers playing for sold out stadiums across the country without a single health-related incident. To say this news comes as a surprise to fans would be an understatement.

News of Petty’s cardiac arrest spread quickly on Monday afternoon, and within an hour of the story breaking TMZ made public the decision to pull life support. An official confirmation of Tom Petty’s passing came at 3:59 PM EST.

No official statement from Tom Petty’s team has been made at this point in time.

In the days and weeks to come there will no doubt be many editorials written to celebrate and memorialize Tom Petty, including some you may find right here on Substream. Beyond reading those, we highly encourage all of you to spend time with Petty’s massive catalog. His Greatest Hits release never disappoints, but the true beauty of his contributions to the world of art become most apparent on his albums. Wildflowers in particular is something special. Our own Web Content Editor, James Shotwell, once described the record as “one of the most important rock albums of the 1990s.”

If you only remember one thing about Petty we hope it’s that he created music for the purpose of spreading joy around the world. He once said, “Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life… It’s pure and it’s real. It moves, it heals…”

We could all use some of that healing power right now. Rest easy, Tom. You will be missed.