Celebrities who Faked Medical Conditions

Any advertisement is good advertisement, right? The old phrase couldn’t be more wrong, and it seems that some d-listers have missed the memo. Directly: People get mad when you pretend illness to get attention, especially when you take into account all the people who suffer in silence and who don’t have a reality TV show or Instagram account to promote. One would think that most celebrities, or really anyone at the top of their field, would have a public relations agent who would advise them not to pretend to be seriously ill, but still persist.

For some horrible reason, cancer seems to be the most popular choice among suitors, perhaps because it is largely invisible until one really gets sick. There are also fake pregnancies, the only way to get rid of is to fake a miscarriage, but not all celebrities who fake it are hiding something or seeking to profit. Actors need to master the art of playing pretend, and sometimes, that’s just the price of a very, very good movie. From terminal illnesses to cancer and alcoholism, these celebrities have reportedly faked their diagnoses.

Dan Mallory, better known by his pseudonym AJ Finn, has a life story as intense as his best-selling thriller, The Woman in the Window, probably because he made it up, too. The novelist was forced to clarify after a profile in The New Yorker accused him of a large swath of lies about his career and medical history.

According to the profile, Mallory repeatedly claimed to have brain cancer for many years, including on a college application and to colleagues at editorials both in the United States and across the pond. The article also claimed that he lost his mother, who was actually suffering from cancer, and his brother, but according to the BBC, both are still alive. A former colleague told the magazine, “OMG. I knew you would receive this call. I didn’t know if it was you or the FBI »

Mallory’s lies, as he claimed, stemmed from the fact that his mother battled an “aggressive” form of breast cancer throughout her teenage life. “Throughout those dark times, and like many affected by severe bipolar II disorder, I experienced crushing depressions, delusional thoughts, morbid obsessions, and memory problems,” he said. The New Yorker added: “I did or said or believed things that I would never say, do or believe, things of which, in many cases, I remember absolutely nothing.”

Kim Zolciak Biermann’s cancer scandal shook Atlanta’s true housewives so much that it’s still a problem today. Fans can recall Zolciak Biermann’s epic fight with NeNe Leakes during the Season 1 finale, where he briefly made it look like he was wearing wigs because he had cancer (let’s not forget, he openly admitted wearing them because it’s “easier”). At that time, the star said tearfully that “she got very sick” and “[her] hair was falling out.” “There was a friend of mine who was a doctor,” he sobbed. “He said, ‘Kim, I have to be honest with you. I mean that you are, 90% sure that you have cancer «.

This may have been the truth, but then he showed his true art. When Andy Cohen bluntly asked the star if she had cancer, she avoided the question and sobbed, “I wouldn’t choose to walk with a hairpiece,” claiming that she actually lost her hair due to chemotherapy. She kept the excitement long enough for Leakes to apologize oddly before Cohen asked her again, admitting that she didn’t really have cancer at all, and that her symptoms were otherwise.

In 2018, a decade later, Leakes mentioned the incident in one episode. According to Pop Culture , Leakes called the mom-slash singer a “counterfeiter,” and Zolciak Biermann was forced to remind us that she was not technically a lie, even though it was all totally grim.

Teen Mom 2’s Leah Messer certainly did not have an easy situation. It is quite difficult to be a pregnant teenager, much less give birth to twins and discover that one of them suffers from muscular dystrophy. This was undeniably overwhelming, but things got even more difficult during Teen Mom 2 season 4 when the reality star found herself pregnant again. Although we were told that the pregnancy she shared with ex-husband Jeremy Calvert ended in a miscarriage, that was not exactly what happened.

In Messer’s memoirs Esperanza, Gracia y fe (via The Sun ), the star revealed that she had a secret abortion, largely because she was in conflict over her relationship with Corey Simms, her ex-husband and the father of their two children. At the time, Messer had just started dating Calvert and was having second thoughts about his divorce. Simms felt the same, and they discussed trying again, but Messer moved in with Calvert and got engaged. Soon after, he discovered that he was waiting. “I was devastated,” she wrote. Having a baby with Jeremy would be the end of any opportunity Corey and I had to make things work for our family.

In an effort to save his “public image,” Messer’s representative devised a plan to dismiss her abortion as a miscarriage. MTV sent the producers to film the emotional sequels. “It was the worst thing that had happened,” he wrote.

James Potok, an aspiring artist, is not famous for his work. Rather, he joined the leagues of other advertising-hungry influencers who made news headlines for a horrible prank: a page from Logan Paul’s playbook. According to Business Insider , Potok pretended to have the coronavirus on a WestJet flight from Toronto to Jamaica in an attempt to achieve viral fame. All he really accomplished was to force an entire plane with 243 passengers to turn around two hours.

In an interview with Toronto City News, viral Aspiring star admitted traveling to Jamaica to film a music video and rose to joke half flight, hoping to publish in Instagram. “I looked around, I said ‘can I get everyone’s attention please’ and … I kept saying, word for word, I said ‘I just returned from Hunan province, the capital of the coronavirus … I don’t feel very well. Thank you, ‘”he said.

For the record, Hunan is not even the so-called ‘coronavirus capital’. The virus originated in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei province, but if we go strictly by the reported infection numbers, the United States seems to be the favorite. In any case, it’s not fun, and according to CBC , Potok was arrested and charged . He said City News did not believe his actions were illegal, but friend, could you not have licked an airplane toilet without disturbing anyone else?

Bradley Cooper, who is sadly still not dating Lady Gaga, faked an illness, but it was all for art. The actor went deep when filming his directorial debut A Star Is Born, where he also played the country’s alcoholic legend, Jackson Maine. Most of us remember that gripping scene where Cooper pees live at the Grammy Awards. It was a critical part of the movie, and to get into that headspace, the star couldn’t leave the character, even when she had to jump to the other side of the camera. So what happened? The actor pretended to be drunk while directing, and everyone just accepted it.

In an interview with Vanity Fair , Cooper admitted that he pretended to be drunk during the filming of A Star is Born, adopting a simulated version of severe alcoholism that sent his character into rehab . “Thank God the actors were willing to allow me to direct them in that state because it was easier to stay in that space,” he said. “It took me a little longer to communicate what I wanted.”

The schtick paid off and, hopefully, arrived without a false hangover. The film was nominated for eight Oscars and five Golden Globes, winning one each for the original song “Shallow.”