NEW YORK, NEW YORK- Last autumn, popular author Dr. Robert Atkins died after a fall on an icy street. Since that time, his estate has continued to deny persistent rumors surrounding his demise, that Atkins had died of a coronary or that he was fleeing from a giant baguette at the time of the accident. Now it just gets worse. According to information leaked from the medical examiner's report and published in The Wall Street Journal, Atkins weighed nearly 260 pounds when he died, a claim that appears to call into question the value of the meat-heavy diet. Even though much of the weight was unrelated to his diet, for many the emperor is now not only clothesless, but also dead and fat.

Most people were unaware of Atkins' girth since most of his PR photos were head shots, but as his condition worsened, aides say the diet guru became increasingly corpulent. "He looked like John Hausman from the shoulders up," said one staffer on condition of anonymity, "but from the torso down, he was all James Coco."

His widow Veronica Atkins, heir to his diet publishing juggernaut, is furious at the leak, accusing anti-Atkins groups of trying to smear her husband's good name and reputation. She also pointed to several recent studies showing that the diet does, indeed, work for many people. Still, she regretfully admits that her late husband was a bit of a porker.

"I recall one time at a family picnic when a friend asked me to grill up another package of hot dogs," she chuckled. "I reached for the nearest one but I found to my horror that I had grabbed the fuzzy fat folds on the back of Bob's neck. He didn't mind, of course. He said that it happened all the time."

Now that the secret is out, old friends are opening up about the effects Atkins' bizarre diet had on his own body. "When Atkins sat around the house, dear God, he sat all the way around it," said one old and dear colleague. "I should also mention that his house is quite large, thus emphasizing just how large I am saying this man was."

Before the end of the day on Tuesday, talk shows all over America were wallowing in the apparent irony. "In fact, Bob was so obese that the fellows at the club had taken to calling him 'damn!' You see, he was so large that his nickname became something of an exclamation. When you saw him, you couldn't help but shout 'damn!' It was funny at the time."

Dr. Neal Barnard from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says his group looked into the case very carefully before issuing their conclusions on the porcine pork pundit. "Understanding the controversy surrounding Dr. Atkins, we evaluated him on several factors, not just his weight-versus-height ratio. We used specialized software to analyze recent photos and video to get an accurate chin count. After comparing this figure with the number of people named 'Chin' in the 2004 Beijing telephone directory, we were confident in our findings. Atkins was a fatty."

Mrs. Atkins has threatened to sue the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine for leaking the information and has begun legal proceedings to prevent The Journal from referring to her husband's weight again.

In response to the threat, the Editor in Chief says the paper will no longer refer to Atkins as a "fatty," "lard-ass," or "big fat hypocrite." Instead the editorial staff have elected to describe the diet guru as "Rubenesque," "pretty-faced," or "enormously boned."