17 Wild Rumors That Made Celebrities Stop In Their Tracks And Say, "Wait, Let Me Clarify"
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When you're a celebrity, dealing with rumors about yourself comes with the territory. Most of the time, they ignore the gossip, but sometimes, a rumor becomes too annoying or too hurtful to ignore.
NBC / Via giphy.com
Here are 17 wild rumors that celebs addressed about themselves:
1.RUMOR: Harry Styles spit on his Don't Worry Darling costar Chris Pine during the Venice Film Festival.
WHAT CHRIS SAID: His reps told Variety, "This is a ridiculous story — a complete fabrication and the result of an odd online illusion that is clearly deceiving and allows for foolish speculation."
The statement continued, "Just to be clear, Harry Styles did not spit on Chris Pine. There is nothing but respect between these two men and any suggestion otherwise is a blatant attempt to create drama that simply does not exist."
WHAT HARRY SAID: During one of his Love on Tour shows at Madison Square Garden, he jokingly told the crowd, "It’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to be back in New York. I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine."
VERDICT: Not true, but several great memes of Chris Pine inspired at the Venice Film Festival.
2.RUMOR: Harry Styles is secretly experiencing hair loss and wears a wig.
WHAT HARRY SAID: He told Rolling Stone that his friend Tom Hull is "completely obsessed" with the conspiracy theory. He said, "He won’t stop sending me messages about [people] trying to work out if I’m bald. What is it with baldness? …It skips a generation or something, right?"
He continued, "If your grandad’s bald then you’ll be bald? Well, my granddad wasn’t bald, so fingers crossed."
VERDICT: Not true, but he should share the funny messages Tom's been sending him about it!
3.RUMOR: Lea Michele can't read.
WHAT LEA SAID: She told the New York Times, "I went to Glee every single day; I knew my lines every single day. And then there’s a rumor online that I can’t read or write? It’s sad. It really is. I think often if I were a man, a lot of this wouldn’t be the case."
During her Funny Girl debut on Broadway, she reportedly made the audience laugh with the extra weight the rumor lent to one of her lines: "I hadn’t read many books."
VERDICT: Not true, and also kinda ableist.
4.RUMOR: In the early 2000s, Avril Lavigne began using a doppelgänger (or potentially a clone) named Melissa to help her handle the struggles of fame, but around 2003, she died and was replaced by Melissa full-time.
WHAT AVRIL SAID: On Australia's KIIS 1065, she told The Kyle and Jackie O Show, "Yeah, some people think that I’m not the real me, which is so weird! Like, why would they even think that?"
VERDICT: Not true...and very weird.
5.RUMOR: Mindy Kaling's close friend and ex-boyfriend, B.J. Novak, is the father of her two children.
WHAT MINDY SAID: She told Marie Claire that the speculation "doesn't bother" her. She said, "He’s the godparent to both my kids — and they have such a great relationship — and so far [the speculation hasn’t] affected my happiness at all, it hasn’t affected my kids or B.J."
She added, "If that’s what is going to be titillating to people, I’ll take it."
Previously, she told the New York Times that she's "not going to talk to anyone else about" her children's paternity until she's had that conversation with her children.
VERDICT: It's nobody's business but theirs.
6.RUMOR: Scarlett Johansson hooked up with someone in an elevator.
WHAT SCARLETT SAID: She told the 9 to 5ish With the Skimm podcast, "There was a rumor that went around for a very long time that said that I had sex in an elevator. That was a story that followed me for a long time. But I always thought that was outrageous."
She continued, "I was always thinking to myself, That would be tough. It's a very short period — the logistics of that seem so unappealing to me...I'm a person who's terrified of being caught doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. So that made the story even that much more absurd to me."
VERDICT: Not true.
7.RUMOR: Elisabeth Moss was secretly engaged to fellow scientologist, Tom Cruise.
WHAT ELISABETH SAID: On Watch What Happens Live! with Andy Cohen, she said, "I actually was confused [by the reports]. I mainly got texts from people being like, 'I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?' And just confusion from my friends, but mainly poking fun at it 'cause obviously they knew it wasn’t true."
She also said that, at the time the rumor surfaced, one tabloid edited her face onto someone else's body to fake a picture of her with Tom.
VERDICT: Not even close to true, since she never even dated him.
8.RUMOR: Ashton Kutcher was photographed spending a day with a "mystery woman," which sparked rumors that he was cheating on his wife Mila Kunis.
WHAT ASHTON SAID: Sharing a screenshot of the magazine spread on Twitter, he said, "You should have heard how upset Mila was that I spent the day with our cousin. Sorry Aunt Jodie, these magazines lack integrity."
VERDICT: Not true, and that magazine probably still owes Aunt Jodie an apology.
9.RUMOR: Jada Pinkett Smith cheated on her husband Will Smith with August Alsina.
WHAT JADA SAID: On Red Table Talk, she confirmed August Alsina's claims that they had a romantic relationship when she and Will "were going through a very difficult time."
Speaking to her husband, she said, "We decided that we were going to separate for a period of time, and you go figure out how to make yourself happy, and I'll figure out how to make myself happy."
Addressing August's claim that he had Will's "blessing," she said, "You know, the only person that can give permission in that particular circumstance is myself...But what August was probably trying to communicate — because I could actually see how he would perceive it as permission — because we were separated amicably. And I think he also wanted to make it clear that he's not a home-wrecker. Which he's not."
Jada also explained that her relationship with August ended when she reconciled her marriage with Will.
WHAT WILL SAID: A year later, he told GQ that he and Jada have a mutual and consensual open marriage. He said, "We have given each other trust and freedom, with the belief that everybody has to find their own way. And marriage for us can’t be a prison. And I don’t suggest our road for anybody."
He continued, "I don’t suggest this road for anybody. But the experiences that the freedoms that we’ve given one another and the unconditional support, to me, is the highest definition of love."
VERDICT: The part about Jada and August's relationship is true, but — in the context of her marriage to Will — the "cheating" part is not.
10.RUMOR: Will Smith is the father of All the Bright Places actor, Justice Smith.
WHAT JUSTICE SAID: He told BuzzFeed, "Everyone thinks I'm Will Smith's son, and I'm NOT his son!"
To further drive the point home, his Twitter bio reads, "Human Person Actor Thing //not will smiths son."
VERDICT: Not true!
11.RUMOR: Victoria Beckham has been in a secret feud with her son and daughter-in-law, Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham, because Nicola didn't let Victoria design her wedding dress.
WHAT NICOLA SAID: In a joint interview with Brooklyn, she told Variety, "I was going to [wear Victoria’s design] and I really wanted to, and then a few months down the line, she realized that her atelier couldn’t do it. So then I had to pick another dress."
"She didn’t say you can’t wear it; I didn’t say I didn’t want to wear it. That’s where it started, and then they ran with that," she said.
WHAT BROOKLYN SAID: He told Variety, "I’ve learned they’re always going to try to write stuff like that. They’re always going to try and put people down. But everyone gets along, which is good."
VERDICT: Not true.
12.RUMOR: After his hair started thinning in the '90s, Matthew McConaughey got a hair transplant.
WHAT MATTHEW SAID: He told LADbible that he grew his hair back by shaving it all off then using a topical ointment, which he still uses. However, he also said that the hair transplant rumors were started by a "very renowned hair transplant guy from, like, Denmark or something" who took credit for his hair regrowth at the international hair transplant convention.
He said he ran into a "really renowned" Beverly Hills hair transplant specialist who told him about the man claiming to have given him a hair transplant. To set the rumors to rest, Matthew let the specialist feel his hair. The specialist said, "I can't wait to bust this guy next year when he raises his hand."
VERDICT: Not true, and lying about giving someone else cosmetic work is not alright, alright, alright at all.
13.RUMOR: Keke Palmer died in 2012, and her sister found out via a trending topic on Twitter.
WHAT KEKE SAID: On Twitter, she said, "Y'all ought to be ashamed of your damn self saying that I died!!!!! I have to answer my phone to hear my sister in got damn tears?"
She continued, "This Twitter death bullsh*t is getting real out of hand, when it hurts my family?? Don't disrespect me or my family! I pray for you all and your negative energy. You do not mess with death."
VERDICT: Definitely not true, and definitely not an okay hoax to spread.
14.RUMOR: In 2021, people speculated that Pete Davidson secretly got married after a press release from a company called Bodega Cats Presents claimed that "Pete and [cofounder] Michelle [Mootreddy] were childhood friends prior to starting Bodega Cats Presents and are married."
WHAT PETE SAID: His attorney told E! News, "The press release being circulated this morning about Pete Davidson is completely false. Not a word of it is true. Mr. Davidson has no idea who this person is."
The lawyer added, "We are investigating and considering all legal and equitable remedies."
VERDICT: Not true, but how this rumor got started in the first place is very confusing.
15.RUMOR: People speculated that Khloé Kardashian was dancing in front of a man who was doing cocaine in a Snapchat post that Kylie Jenner made from her high school graduation party.
WHAT KHLOÉ SAID: On Twitter, she said, "You guys will make up anything. No! No one was doing coke at a graduation party in broad daylight with teenagers and 15 production cameras! We aren't as wild as you want to believe. We were taking Jell-O shots though."
She continued, "You have to scrape the rim of the show glass with your finger to loosen up the Jell-O in order to take it. Just say no to drugs kids! Drugs [are] so not our style."
VERDICT: Not true.
16.RUMOR: Khloé Kardashian was banned from the Met Gala.
WHAT KHLOÉ SAID: In response to a fan asking her about the rumor, she tweeted, "Absolutely NOT true."
She finally made her Met Gala debut in 2022.
VERDICT: Not true — absolutely NOT true!
17.And finally, RUMOR: Kim Kardashian photoshopped Khloé's daughter True over Kylie's daughter Stormi in the Disneyland pictures she posted on Instagram.
WHAT KHLOÉ SAID: Six months later, Khloé shared videos and pictures from True's first time at Disneyland, where they were celebrating her fourth birthday. When fans brought back up the photoshop conspiracy theory, Khloé tweeted, "Welllppp I fucked this one up."
With laughing face emojis, she added, "Anyways….. let’s focus on something else. Our show airs in a few days."
VERDICT: Unsurprisingly true.
