21 Times Celebs Got Caught In Really Strange Lies

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Sometimes, famous people stretch the truth for attention, like costars leaning into affair rumors to promote a rom-com. But some of them are really out there just lying for the love of the game!

Here are 21 times celebs got caught in really strange lies:

1. THE LIE: In 2011, Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to several months of 12-hour community service shifts at a morgue for drunk driving and violating her probation. She told the Telegraph, "F'd up and inappropriate — because a lot of other people were meant to do it, and they were like, 'No, they can't handle it. Lohan can.' It's different for me than it would be for other people — like, no one would really have to work at the morgue in LA and roll a body bag for Whitney Houston."

THE TRUTH: An official from the coroner's office denied her claims, telling TMZ that, though Lindsay was serving her hours at the time of Whitney's death, no one from the court-ordered probation program she was part of ever came in contact with the late singer.

2. THE LIE: In various interviews over the years, Steve Rannazzisi claimed that he survived 9/11. He said that, while working in Merrill Lynch's offices, he escaped from the Twin Towers and had the epiphany that "life is too precious" to continue working in business.

THE TRUTH: In 2015, the New York Times unraveled his lie, revealing he'd been working in a different part of NYC that day, that he'd never worked for Merrill Lynch, and that Merrill Lynch never had offices in the Twin Towers. In a statement, the comedian said, "I was not at the Trade Center on that day. I don't know why I said this. This was inexcusable. I am truly, truly sorry."

3. THE LIE: Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes initially presented themselves as siblings.

THE TRUTH: In 2001, reports came out that they'd actually been a married couple but divorced a year prior. Jack denied this, telling NME, "We're brother and sister. Someone started a rumor about how we used to be married, and we played along with it. That was a bad idea, we get asked this all the time now." However, the Detroit Free Press published their marriage certificate, revealing that they'd been married from 1996 to 2000.

THE TRUTH: A few days later, he told Good Morning America that he'd lied for fun. He said, "No. I think, like, my life's so boring, and it seemed like something exciting to talk about, and I wanted the audience to like me. They really like people getting married. I can get engaged again, if you like."

5. THE ALLEGED LIE: For several years, Hilaria Baldwin — who was born Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas — seemingly claimed she was born in Mallorca, Spain. All seven of her children even have Spanish first or middle names.

THE TRUTH: In 2020, a viral tweet about her "commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person" spurred her to clarify. In an Instagram video, she said, "I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. ... In this country, I would use the name Hillary. In Spain, I would use the name Hilaria [...] I identify more with Hilaria, because that's what my family calls me."

She also said that she was raised bilingual, which is why her accent seemingly changes. She said, "It's one of those things that I've always been a bit insecure about [...] If I get nervous, or I get upset, then I start to mix the two."

6. THE LIE: In 2016, the Sun reported that Princess Beatrice accidentally cut Ed Sheeran's face with a ceremonial sword while she was jokingly knighting James Blunt. When the alleged incident was brought up on The Graham Norton Show a few months later, Ed said, "I can't talk about it. ... It was James Blunt trying to get his pop career back."

THE TRUTH: A few months after that, James told ShortList, "Ed was drunk, messing around, and he cut himself. We made a fancy story up; people fell for it. It was very embarrassing. ... All of it [was made up]. Apart from the actual scar. It's bizarre that people fell for it. I blame him. He must be desperate — he’s trying to sell records. ... He cut himself, and I just patched him up. It's made him look prettier."

7. THE LIE: In the 2010s, Australian wellness influencer Belle Gibson grew a following by claiming that, after being diagnosed with "malignant brain cancer" at age 20 and given "six weeks, four months tops" to live, she forewent standard medical treatment and went on "a quest to heal [her]self naturally… through nutrition, patience, determination and love." Later on, she claimed she was diagnosed with "cancer in [her] blood, spleen, brain, uterus, and liver" as well.

THE TRUTH: After Belle failed to present a charity with the $300,000 donation she'd promised, people began doubting her story. In 2015, she told the Australian magazine Women's Weekly, "None of it's true. ... I am still jumping between what I think I know and what is reality. I have lived it, and I'm not really there yet."

8. THE LIE: In his 2019 memoir, And Then It Fell Apart, Moby alleged that, when he was 33, he dated Natalie Portman, who was purportedly a 20-year-old Harvard student at the time. He wrote, "At midnight she brought me to her dorm room, and we lay down next to each other on her small bed. After she fell asleep, I carefully extracted myself from her arms and took a taxi back to my hotel... [Anxiety] wanted one thing: for me to be alone … nothing triggered my panic attacks more than getting close to a woman I cared about... For a few weeks, I had tried to be Natalie's boyfriend, but it hadn't worked out." He alleged that it didn't work out because she met someone else.

THE TRUTH: In response, Natalie told Harper's Bazaar, "I was surprised to hear that he characterized the very short time that I knew him as dating because my recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school. He said I was 20; I definitely wasn't. I was a teenager. I had just turned 18. There was no fact checking from him or his publisher — it almost feels deliberate. That he used this story to sell his book was very disturbing to me. It wasn't the case. There are many factual errors and inventions. I would have liked him or his publisher to reach out to fact check."

Moby apologized via Instagram, writing, "As some time has passed I've realized that many of the criticisms leveled at me regarding my inclusion of Natalie in Then It Fell Apart are very valid. I also fully recognize that it was truly inconsiderate of me to not let her know about her inclusion in the book beforehand, and equally inconsiderate for me to not fully respect her reaction."

9. THE LIE: When Architectural Digest filmed a tour of Dakota Johnson's home in 2020, she had a TON of limes on her counter. She very enthusiastically shared her love for limes, saying, "I love limes! I love them. They're great."

THE TRUTH: On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she revealed, "I actually didn't even know they were in there. I was giving the tour and went into the kitchen, and it was set dressing." I'm actually allergic to limes."

10. THE LIE: In 2023, Dakota told the Wall Street Journal, "Sleep is my number one priority in life...I’m not functional if I get less than 10. I can easily go 14 hours."

THE TRUTH: A few months later, she told Bustle, "I know I've exaggerated in this interview, and you can tell that I'm exaggerating because you see my face. If it's written down, it's hard. But it's fine. I got into a funny little fight with somebody. I was really annoyed by everyone in the world talking about my sleep schedule, and someone that I know was like, 'But do you really sleep 14 hours a night? That's amazing.' And I was like, 'Did you read the article, or did you just read the fucking headline? Asshole.' I bit her head off."

11. THE LIE: During the early days of One Direction, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson told an interviewer that their bandmate Niall Horan was dating Carly Rae Jepsen.

THE TRUTH: Speaking to Sirius XM in 2019, Niall lightheartedly called out Louis for starting the rumor.

Appearing on Sirius XM a few weeks later, Louis reacted to Niall's clip and reminisced on how much fun they used to have making things up in interviews.

12. THE LIE: At the 2024 Twisters premiere, Paul Scheer told a red carpet interviewer, "I've aged great since the first Twister. A lot of people don't know that I had a small part in that. One of the background people was pregnant. That was my mom, and now, I'm the legacy character. I've come back."

THE TRUTH: Later, on the podcast Lovett or Leave It, he hilariously called out how ridiculous it was that people took him seriously, as he was born in 1976 — 20 years before Twister premiered!

13. THE LIE: In 1929, silent film star Joan Lowell shared the story of her adventurous, seafaring upbringing in her autobiography, Cradle of the Deep. Supposedly, her father, a sea captain, raised her on a schooner, and they traveled the world with his sailors. She included all kinds of sensationalist details, including the claim that, as a baby, she was fed by a goat named "Wet Nurse," and that, in the South Pacific, she saw a mass wedding where all of the newlyweds had public sex afterward.

THE TRUTH: When a wholesaler received a copy of the book before its release, an employee who happened to be a sailor told the publisher that it must be the "biggest hoax of the century." When the publisher asked Joan about it, she denied making any embellishments. Later on, a newspaper commissioned Lincoln Colcord, a freelance writer who sailed as a hobby, to write a review. But when he turned in his assignment, the paper feared that his article might be libelous. So, they arranged a meeting between Joan, her publishers, Lincoln, and his editor. Lincoln called out the impossibilities and fake slang in her book.

However, after Lincoln's scathing review was published, other journalists decided to investigate Joan's story. They found that her real name was Helen Joan Wagner and that she'd attended middle and high school in Berkeley. Her dad really was a boat captain, and she occasionally sailed with him on the Minnie A. Caine growing up. However, the ship didn't wreck, and contrary to what she claimed in the book, her mother was very much alive. Joan would only admit "that the cats were thrown in for color," and she refused to fess up to any other fabrications. Later on, she said that only 80 percent of the book was true.

14. THE LIE: In 2001, Nadine Coyle — who later rose to fame as a member of Girls Aloud — competed on Irish Popstars. Competitors had to be at least 18, but since she was only 16, she lied about her age.

THE TRUTH: She accidentally spilled her own secret during an interview.

A producer discovered that she'd put 1983 as her birth year on her paperwork and confronted her about the contradiction. Nadine tried to backtrack then acted like she didn't know where her passport was.

15. THE LIE: For two years, the hip-hop duo Silibil N' Brains — aka Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd — masqueraded as two California boys who met at a San Francisco rap battle.

THE TRUTH: In reality, they were friends from Dundee, Scotland, who'd never even been to California. They decided to hide their roots after a 13-hour bus journey to London for a label audition, where they were laughed at for being from Scotland. In a joint 2013 Vice interview, Billy said, "We fell into those identities as a result of how we were feeling. We decided we either had to give up or do something crazy." Gavin added, "The hip hop we'd been listening to was American, so we were miming their accents when we were singing in the shower. We could rap in the accent naturally, but we began speaking that way as well."

16. THE LIE: In 2015, Suki Waterhouse told Us Weekly, "I rinse my hair with Coca-Cola sometimes. I don't like my hair when it's washed — it's fine and limp — but Coca-Cola makes it tousled, like I've gone through the Amazon or something."

THE TRUTH: In 2022, she admitted to the lie on Twitter. Replying to a fan, she said, "I have to be honest, I got bored doing hair interviews and said this. I have never done this, ma'am."

17. And now for the undisputed king of lying, Robert Pattinson! THE LIE: When he appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2009, he shared a story about having dinner with his stalker, who had such a bad time that she stopped stalking him afterwards.

THE TRUTH: In 2024, he confirmed to the New York Times that the stalker story was one big lie. He said, "The only thing people would ever ask me about was being famous. You go into, like, a fugue state."

18. THE LIE: Appearing on Today in 2011, Robert told a dark story in response to a question about wanting to "run away and join the circus" as a kid.

THE TRUTH: The following week, a journalist asked him about the story during a press event in Germany. He reportedly replied, "I said those things. But I actually made the whole thing up. It's coming back to haunt me. I said it on some show. It was really early in the morning, the day after the New York premiere. Someone asked me what my experience with the circus was and I was like, 'I have nothing interesting to say.' I don't know why I said that!"

19. THE LIE: When Robert Pattinson appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2011, the host brought up the actor's often-repeated story about a former stint as a hand model.

THE TRUTH: With his mother in the audience, Robert couldn't keep up the lie.

His mom, Clare, even debunked the story herself.

20. THE LIE: In 2020, Robert told GQ that he ignored the trainer the studio hired and was "barely doing anything" in terms of working out for The Batman. He said, "I think if you're working out all the time, you're part of the problem. ... You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the '70s. Even James Dean — he wasn't exactly ripped."

THE TRUTH: Two years later, he told MovieMaker that he'd been joking to GQ. He said, "That really came back to haunt me. I just always think it's really embarrassing to talk about how you're working out. I think it's like an English thing. Unless you are in the most unbelievable shape, where people are just genuinely curious, going, 'How have you achieved, like, physical perfection?' or whatever. ... You're playing Batman. You have to work out. I think I was doing the interview when I was in lockdown, as well, in England. ... I was in a lower gear of working out."

21. And finally, THE LIE: In 2009, Robert Pattinson reportedly told Extra that he didn't "really see the point in washing your hair" or particularly "care if it's clean or not."

THE TRUTH: In 2022, he told MovieMaker, "[What I said about not working out is] the same thing as saying in an interview when I was like 21 that I didn’t wash my hair. It just sticks for 15 years."

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