Yahoo Lifestyle 19 Famous People Who Got Caught Lying About Who They REALLY Are
Actors and musicians are storytellers, successfully selling narratives in their performances or lyrics.
Sometimes, however, they use those skills to create false narratives about themselves. Here are 19 celebrities who lied about their heights, ages, or origins:
1.After years of conflicting reports about his height, in 2020, Nicholas Braun told Business Insider, "6'7" is the real number. I used to make it shorter because most people hear 6'7" or even 6'6" and, I think, are a little spooked by it, like I'm going to be too tall. I'm just talking about in auditions or when I'm going for a part. So I used to sort of make it low, 6'4", 6'5". I'm really 6'7" when I stand. It's been the biggest impediment to getting roles, I think, my whole life. Because even as a kid when I was younger, like 11, 12 years old, I was very tall. I just kept being very tall. But everybody's got something that can get in the way. I'm just gonna embrace it from here on out."
2.Idris Elba pretended to be American for his The Wire audition. In 2019, he told Hot Ones, "[Series creator] David Simon specifically told Alexa Fogel, who is the casting director, 'Listen, this is about Baltimore. I don't wanna see no non-Americans for any of these roles. I need people that can really relate to the story I'm trying to tell here.' Which is a very fair thing to ask for, considering how observant he is of the culture. So, Alexa Fogel was a casting director that was really into seeing new talent, and she met me. And she said, 'I love you. I can bring you into this audition, but you gotta promise me, you can't tell them you're from East London.'"
He continued, "I'm like, 'What?' 'You gotta walk in there, you gotta talk with your accent. You live in Brooklyn, right? You got...sit in the barbershop. Talk all day.' I was like, 'Okay.'
So my first audition, walked in there, and I had to just pretend. She's outside the door. She's like, 'Remember. Don't go in there with an English accent.'...So I set in there, and I did my first audition. David Simon was like, 'Well, great. great.'"
By his fourth audition, Idris felt comfortable with his American accent. However, he knew he'd been found out when an Irish man started asking him about his life.
He continued, "Now, this is the moment of truth because my parents told me not to lie, you know what I mean? You gotta look someone in the eye and be honest. I have lied. It's never worked out for me. So, I was looking at this guy, thinking, 'Yeah, guy, you know I'm not from Brooklyn. Don't ask me where I'm from. Just ask me to read the lines, and we can get out of here.'
And he was Irish, so I could tell he had this twinkle in his eye. He was like, 'No, come one, brother. Where you from?'
And I said, 'Listen, mate, I'm from London, bro. I'm born and raised in East London...Don't fire Alexa, but she told me not to tell you guys.'
And he jumped over, and, 'I knew it! I knew it, David!'
David was like, 'Wow, okay.' And true story, he said, 'You know, we just wanna give you the job.' I nearly burst into tears 'cause it was a tough time for me at times. And he said, 'I'm not gonna give you Avon, but I think you could play Stringer Bell.' And he told me why, and that was it."
3.From 2000–2019, Laverne Cox lied about her age. In 2022, she told The Ellen Show, "I was 28 years old, and I was dating a guy that was 21, and he broke up with me because he said I was too old. And I was like, 'Oh, if I'm too old, I'll just be 22.'" After a few years, though, she didn't want to lie about being 22 anymore. She continued, "'Over 21' became my age. And so I was 'Over 21' from like 2002 to 2019." However, when IMDB "figured out" her real age, Laverne "was having such anxiety" and worried it would make her seem like she "wasn't hirable" or "dateable." So, she spoke with her therapist about these feelings. When she was speaking at an event in 2019, she said her real age out loud for the first time.
She told The Ellen Show, "I thought the sky was going to fall, but it was like nothing. And it was a reminder that in our heads, we might have shame about something...and no one really cares."
4.Early in her career, Nicole Kidman, who's 5'11", was told, "You won't have a career. You're too tall." In 2024, she told the Radio Times Podcast, "I say 5'10½", but I'm 5'11"." Unfortunately, she learned her height may be a hindrance to her acting career quite young. She said, "I remember auditioning for Annie, which was just one of those big callouts where hundreds and hundreds of people [go]. I didn't have an agent or anything; I just showed up...I had to talk my way through the door 'cause they were measuring you before you went in. I was mortified, and I was over the mark. I think you had to be, sort of, 5'2", and I was maybe 5'4"...and they let me in..."
She said that she didn't get a callback, but she was grateful to the person who let her in to audition.
5.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. However, 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.
Off camera, she came clean about her real age. She had to leave the show, despite her bandmates' protests. You can watch the full clip below:
6.When Kaya Scodelario was 14, one of her teachers told the students about auditions for Skins. In 2024, she told the Guardian, "A group of us went down just to look, and then a couple of the confident girls went in. I was stood watching when the creator, Bryan Elsley, came outside for a cigarette – I think they had had too many kids turn up, so he was going down the line and quite brutally being like, 'Yes, no, yes, no.' He saw me across the road and said, 'Do you want to audition?'" Then, Kaya auditioned, but she also lied and said she was 15. However, after she booked it, she found out they were actually looking for a younger actor. So, she called the producers and said, "No, I lied! I lied! I'm only 14!"
7.In 2020, Jacob Elordi told GQ, "I used to be so sensitive about my height, because when I first started acting, literally everybody would tell me that I'd never work because they wouldn't be able to partner me with people, and they wouldn't lift the camera up. So, I basically got told that I was too tall to be an actor. So to all of those people...nice. So, yeah, I was super nervous about telling people my height. So I used to try and pass as, like, 6'2" or 6'3", but I'm actually 6'5". So online, there's all different kinds of numbers. I've just sold myself out. Just because...people hear 6'5", and they go, like 'You're a giant,' but if I stand next to someone who's 6'3", the difference is, like, tiny."
8.At age 24, Gillian Anderson landed a leading role on The X-Files with relatively little acting experience by pretending to be older. In 2020, she told Fresh Air, "I lied about my age on the first audition. So I said that I was 27. So that's how you get that job. But I was sent in on an audition, like any other audition, and then kept getting called back and, eventually, you know, went to network with all the other girls who were also trying out for the role, going to network and getting to read with David Duchovny, who they had by that point chosen as Mulder. But they weren't convinced — Chris Carter, who created the series, was convinced that I was his Scully, but the network wasn't. And so, all of a sudden, they started to fly in all these other actresses from the theater community in New York."
She continued, "And I'd been living in LA for a little while when I did this audition and had been living in New York beforehand, auditioning with all these young women in the theater community. And all of a sudden, they were being flown in because I wasn't good enough for The X-Files. And so I was auditioning, suddenly, with Jill Hennessy and Cynthia Nixon and all these women...And, anyway, I ended up getting the job."
9.When Laurence Fishburne auditioned for Apocalypse Now, he claimed he was 16, but he was actually 14. The jig was up when producer Fred Roos recognized him from a previous project. However, a secretary's opinion that he could pass for 18 helped him get the role. In 2013, Laurence told George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, "A young woman who was working in the offices, a secretary, got up and walked through. And as she was walking, Francis [Ford Coppola, the director] finally spoke up, and he just looked at her and said, 'Excuse me, you think this kid could be 18?' And whoever this young woman was, she turned around, looked at me, and went, 'Yeah.'"
10.In 2018, Chloë Grace Moretz told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, "I lied to a pretty heavy hitter. I lied to Martin Scorsese for Hugo. In Hugo, I'm supposed to have a British accent and be British, and so I went in there, you know, just ready for it...I hadn't done a British accent before...But I have, like, a solid ear, so I'm okay with faking it. And I go into the audition, and I'd done, like, you know, a couple smaller auditions, and the casting director knew I wasn't British, but she knew that I was willing to lie. And she liked me. And she was like, 'Lie to Marty. It'll work.' And I was like, 'Okay. If I get the part.' I'd already lied in my self-tape, and then I lied with her, and she knew the truth. So, she was like, 'Keep lying.'" So, Chloë told the director she was the daughter of horse breeders from Cambridgeshire.
She continued, "And then I started going down a rabbithole and realizing that, as I said that, I don't know anything about horses. And thank God I got myself out of this tricky sitch. But I ended up booking the part, and it wasn't really until much later in production that he realized I was not British.
I was speaking usually in a British accent throughout the movie, and then I stopped. And I talked about being from Georgia, and my brother and mother were very American. And I think my mom's southern accent kind of gave the whole 'horsebreeding' away."
She said that, when Martin found out she lied, he laughed and said, "Good on ya! Good one!"
11.When Lisanne Falk auditioned for Heathers, she was 23 but claimed to be 19. In 2019, she told Fox News, "Looking back at it, it's kind of gotten misinterpreted. At the time there were so many teen movies where you had people who were looking 30 years old, who were way past their due date in terms of being in high school. I got this audition through my agent and…I was 23 at the time. But I always looked quite young…And when I read the script, I just knew I had to do this. I didn't want to lose my opportunity. So I thought, 'I'm just going to go in and add a 'teen' at the end of my age so it's not even an issue. So that they wouldn't think twice about hiring me.' And basically it worked. I said I was 19, and they were fine with it. I didn't think I wouldn't have to deal with that again."
"I think it wasn't until we actually started shooting, and I was talking about living with my boyfriend — not that I couldn't have done that at 19. But at the time they were like, 'Ooh, is your mom OK with that?' And so yeah, it all came out. But it was fine," she said.
12.To nab the role of 16-year-old Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills 90210, then-29-year-old Gabrielle Carteris lied about being 21. In 2019, she told People, "When I got the role, a lawyer told me I could sign a contract and state a different age, as long as it was over the age of 21. When [my real age] did come out, the show was just starting to take off, and my character was established enough that they did not fire me. But a producer did say to me, 'You're lucky we didn't know your age when we hired you.'"
She married Charlie Isaac two years into the show.
She said, "Before I got pregnant with my first child, I went to Aaron [Spelling, the executive producer] and said, 'My husband, Charlie, and I would like to start a family, and I'd like for you to write it in that Andrea gets pregnant because I don't want to hide my pregnancy. I want my baby to know I was proud and share it with the world.' Aaron was so shocked, but he said, 'Yes, we'll do it.' So Andrea was full-blown pregnant."
13.In 2013, Jessica Chastain — who was widely reported to be 35 at the time — told the Independent, "I will never say my age because I'm an actress, and I want to play different ages."
14.In 2016, Chris Hemsworth told the Radio Times, "There are certainly things I've wanted to go up for which I've been totally wrong for, physically. And I normally lie about my height [6'3"] and say I'm shorter. But it can go two ways. The brief for the audition for Thor said, 'Must be over 6'1", which I'd never seen before!"
15.In 2023, James Blunt told the Guardian, "If you look at my Wikipedia page, it will say that I'm 47 — I'm actually 49. That's because I changed the entry." As of February 2025, his age on Wikipedia is listed correctly.
16.In a 2021 essay for iNews, Paloma Faith wrote, "I was 27 when I put my first record out, but I told my label I was 23. I looked quite young, so I could get away with it. I read a lot of articles about musicians at the time, and it seemed like every piece about KT Tunstall would imply that she was quite old, even though she was only 27. That really affected me, and I remember thinking, 'I want to be judged for my music, not my age.' My plan had been to get to a certain level of success and then have a conversation about my age, but I was forced to do it sooner because someone kept changing my Wikipedia page. Every time I set my age to 23, they would change it back to 27. Eventually, they provided my birth certificate to Wikipedia, so I was blocked from editing my own page."
"It really brought home to me how much my age was going to be a factor in my career," she said.
17.After being scouted at 18, Agyness Deyn spent five years as a jobbing model. Then, when she was 23, she signed with an agent in New York and reached new levels of success. At the time, she was surrounded by rumors that she'd lied about her age. The rumors reportedly sparked from a Facebook group called "Agyness Deyn You're Not 18," which her former classmates made in 2007. The page said, "This group is for all those who realize that supermodel Agyness Deyn, AKA Laura Hollins, is not 18, or 21, or any of the other ages she claims to be. We know people who went to school with her and will verify she is 24." In 2012, Agyness told the Guardian she'd been lying for much longer than people theorized.
She said, "When I decided I would really do modeling, I was like 18, and I think at the time that was quite old for a new face, so we knocked off a few years.
But it was my birthday last week, and Henry was saying how old would you have been? 'Cause it got really complicated – when personal and work collide – and Henry [Holland, fashion designer and her best friend since childhood] was like, 'But it looks like I started being friends with you when you were four or something!'"
18.When Whoopi Goldberg was 30, it was widely reported that she was 35. In 1986, she told the Washington Post, "I had to lie about my age to get some jobs."
19.And finally, for two years, the hip-hop duo Silibil N' Brains — aka Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd — masquerade as two California boys who met at a San Francisco rap battle. 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."
Gavin continued, "We realized we couldn't just go down and rap in these Californian accents and then speak like two lads from Dundee. People in the industry would think that was ridiculous. So we got to a point where it felt all or nothing... Two years in these characters? That required talent. We had everyone convinced we were the next Eminem. The scam was to con them in terms of the marketing."
After getting signed to a label, they went from being in debt to suddenly having a lot of money in their accounts. They were stressed and paranoid about keeping up the act, but they got "completely addicted" to the lifestyle they portrayed.
Gavin said, "We needed to be approachable, fun, wild guys. We needed everyone to want to party with us. We felt we needed people to be with us, rather than against us. But we were 21-year-olds, we had no idea who we really were, and we started to become addicted to these characters who were far more cooler than we really were. The plan was to break into the industry and come clean. We started to lose that. After six months of playing a character and getting success, you start to forget who you really are. I'd see a picture of my parents and think, 'I'm not their son anymore.' We worked so hard at making these addictive characters, and we became addicted to them."
However, according to the Guardian, keeping up the lies proved difficult. It took a toll on Gavin's mental health. He drank too much and developed a stomach ulcer. It also ruined their friendship, and everything ended when Billy left to go home to Dundee.
The duo reunited in 2013 and released the EP Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as well as the documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax.
Currently, a James McAvoy-directed Silibil N' Brains biopic titled California Schemin' is in the works.
In your opinion, what's the most ridiculous lie a celebrity's ever been caught in? Let us know in the comments!
