"Pulitzer Prize-nominated author and poet Maya Angelou was taken to the hospital Sunday for as-yet-unknown causes, TMZ.com reported.

Angelou, 81, was in Los Angeles to be honored at the BraveHeartAwards, celebrating women who have made changes in their professional fields. Other celebrities scheduled to attend the weekend-long ceremonies were Mariel Hemingway and Courteney Cox, according to the awards' site.

Angelou gained worldwide fame with her literary activism in the Civil Rights movement and for works like "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," an autobiographical account of her childhood and early teenage years. The book recounted Angelou's experience with sexual abuse and rape at the age of 8 at the hands of her mother's boyfriend.

She was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 poetry collection, "Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie." (Source: NBC)

We pray that she is alright. Ms. Angelou has a fighter spirit so we pray that she'll pull through whatever it is that caused her to be hospitalized. In any event send your prayers and all the positive energy you can muster her way.

*UPDATE* Reports that Ms. Angelou were ill and hospitalized turned out to be false, thank goodness. Check out more details after the jump.

"Angelou is not sick. She wasn’t hospitalised last night in LA as TMZ had reported.

TMZ which now has a reputation of breaking news first, for scooping traditional news outlets with celebrity news. The website broke the news of Michael Jackson’s death first.

But it got this wrong. In an update on the story the site says that “Angelou is alive and well in St. Louis today and heading off to New York City for the next 2-3 weeks.”

The organisers of an event in LA where she was expected to appear were horrible misinformed, or maliciously and deliciously misinformed TMZ." (Times)