Let’s be honest: we’re not holding up Hollywood stars and famous icons as shining beacons of common sense. They simply don’t live in the same world as most normal folks do, so it’s almost impossible for them to relate. Something seems to happen when money and fame come their way that separates them and rewires their brains.
But there is another, smaller subsection of celebrity. There are people who skipped right on past being out of touch, and rocketed straight into the stratosphere of lunacy. Seriously, some of these beliefs would make you think that they’re just trolling society at large, but sadly, no. These are some really, really, astoundingly crazy things that some celebrities believe.
10. Megan Fox Believes In Leprechauns
You may be familiar with Megan Fox as one of the stars of the Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchises. Nerds everywhere marveled at her beauty, but many of her roles didn’t give her the opportunity to show off her brains. One of the possible reasons for this is when she does open her mouth, sometimes she starts talking about leprechauns.
That’s right, at least as recently as 2013, Megan Fox expressed her love and belief of leprechauns. And before you make fun of her believing in a gold-pot-possessing Lucky Charm mascot, let’s clarify that she instead believes in the “old style” kind. Whatever that means. She also believes in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and has seen healing miracles happen while people were speaking in tongues. So you know it’s all legit.
9. Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Thinks Obama Staged Mass Shootings
Dave Mustaine, the frontman of metal giants Megadeth, has a long and storied history of spouting off at the mouth. Back in 1988, he said that he would build a wall at the Mexico-U.S. border and not let anyone in. He’s shown support for the Irish Republican Army, even during concerts in Northern Ireland.
But Mustaine put all of that to shame in 2012 when, during a concert in Singapore, he went on an Obama rant for the ages. He started off by mentioned that then-President Barack Obama was trying to pass a gun ban. Which really put a bee in his bonnet, because then he accused the leader of staging mass murders and shootings. The movie theater in Colorado, the Sikh temple in Wisconsin — all of these tragedies were perpetrated by Obama, according to Mustaine. Despite, you know, science and evidence.
8. Rapper Fat Joe Thinks His Industry Is Controlled By The “Gay Mafia”
There is a long history of organized crime being involved in the music industry, going back to the early days of payola in radio. The rapper Fat Joe believes there are still forces at play within the music world, pulling the strings and setting mechanisms in play, without the public being aware. Which group might that be, you ask?
He thinks it’s a kind of “gay mafia”. In an interview in 2011, he referred to rap as the “greatest gay market in the world”. It’s actually a pretty accepting view in a culture that hasn’t always had the greatest luck with that. Fat Joe believes that gay people are in power in hip hop, that they are in charge of handing out awards, and that they run rap radio stations and magazines. And with prominent hip hop artists like Frank Ocean and Lil Nas X coming out, perhaps it will lead to even more barriers being broken down.
7. Marion Cotillard Thinks 9/11 Was An Inside job AND The Moon Landings Were Faked
You may remember Marion Cotillard from a few Chris Nolan movies, specifically Inception, where she was the haunting memory and Achilles Heel of Leonardo DiCaprio’s dream terrorist character. Well, Ms. Cotillard has her own set of depraved thoughts buried in her brain, just like that film. Except hers concern one of the greatest tragedies of our time.
Marion, at least for a time, believed that the 9/11 attacks were more than just terrorist actions. She doubted that buildings would burn and fall down just from planes hitting them. She alluded to the huge cost of modernizing the aging World Trade Center as a potential reason for an insider demolition job. During that same 2007 interview, she crossed off another crackpot checkbox when she expressed doubt that we ever landed on the moon.
6. Will Smith’s Kids Believe They Can Alter Time Itself
Jaden Smith, son of Fresh Prince star Will, is an odd fellow. Not shocking, since his parents have raised him in an environment that discouraged any kind of punishment. Perhaps because of that, Jaden has been outspoken about some issues. In 2013, he advised people to drop out of school, and conspiracy theories are a beloved pastime for him.
But Jaden’s views on time itself during a 2014 interview are really where the good meat is. He believes that where you are in the universe changes how time moves for you. Great, that’s a good start, and fairly accurate. He goes on to say that on Earth, if you stay at a certain level of awareness, one second can last a year. Maybe a bit of childhood hyperbole? Jaden’s sister, Willow, however, totally doubles down, saying “time, for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please. That’s how I know it doesn’t exist.”
5. Rob Lowe Thinks he was almost killed by Bigfoot
The Lowe Files was a short-lived A&E show starring, you guessed it, ’80s heartthrob Rob Lowe. Why would Rob Lowe cohost a paranormal show with his sons, you ask? Well, he’s always had a keen interest in local legends and spooky stories. Despite his show only lasting one season, Lowe used that short time to share a part of his own paranormal past that people hadn’t been privy to.
Rob Lowe was almost certainly accosted by a Bigfoot, though he referred to it as a wood ape. He shared a tale of being in the Ozark mountains shooting the A&E show and suddenly fearing for his life, as a Bigfoot-type creature knocked him to the ground. Lowe was having an honest-to-goodness unscripted moment, he said, but was relatively coy in interviews, asking people to watch the finale to see exactly what he was talking about. No one did, and that’s why the show only lasted one season.
4. Axl Rose Had A Fear Of Things That Begin With The Letter M
1992 was the height of fame for rock band Guns N’ Roses. They were on an arena tour with the legendary Metallica, and were fresh off their hit release Use Your Illusion. Things could not have been going better for Axl and the Roses, but his penchant for showing up late for concerts and general volatile behavior towards fans and paparazzi were threatening to derail everything.
Then came the revelation about his dislike for the letter M. On the advice of Axl Rose’s psychic at some point during the 1992 tour, he was told to avoid cities that began with M. That meant towns like Memphis, Milwaukee, and Miami missed out on the whirlwind of chaos that the Guns brought to each performance. And perhaps the psychic had a point: when the tour hit Montreal, there was a riot and Metallica frontman James Hetfield almost got burned to death.
3. Kanye Believes The Government Created AIDS
Kanye West isn’t just a lightning rod for controversy, he’s more of a Tesla coil on steroids. Nearly everything he’s ever said has been scrutinized and analyzed, since his award swiping at the VMAs and his comments about George W. Bush and black people. That’s a high bar to set, but Kanye is nothing if not a perfectionist at saying some really bonkers stuff.
But during his performance at 2005’s global Live 8, Kanye started talking about AIDS, which makes sense because the event was partially directed towards AIDS awareness. Then he started talking about how AIDS was man-made, and that it was created to blight the black community much like the crack epidemic did. If you thought that was just a one-off statement during the heat of a performance, think again. He doubled down in one of his song lyrics, rapping “before you ask me to go get a job today/ Can I at least get a raise of the minimum wage?/ And I know that the government administer AIDS/ So I guess we just pray like the minister say.”
2. Dave Grohl Thinks That HIV And AIDS Are Not Linked
Dave Grohl is many things. He’s an amazingly-talented drummer, a gifted singer, and an engaging frontman for the Foo Fighters. He’s a true student of music, pleading for fans to not just digest what’s on the radio, but to dig deeper and find the honest music that’s still being created. He loves music history. He brings his adorable kids out on stage and has them participate during his gigs. He also has no idea what he’s talking about in regards to the medical field.
In the year 2000, Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters played a show to benefit a group that denied a link between HIV and AIDS, after bass player Nate Mendel became enamored with a book based on said topic. They went on to play several more concerts for and openly supported the deniers groups, Alive & Well, all over their website. They have in recent years been more quiet on the subject, perhaps because of the fact that the CDC itself says “the scientific evidence is overwhelming that HIV is the cause of AIDS.”
1. “The Color Purple” Author Believes In A Race Of Lizard People
Author Alice Walker penned the hugely-influential book The Color Purple, which spawned the hugely-influential movie of the same name. She’s also been an activist pushing forward for equal rights for women and people of color, so it was weird when she took time out during a New York Times piece to speak about an author who is famously anti-Semitic.
David Icke is the author that Walker was referring to. Icke, for those of you not familiar, has argued that the world is run by a secret race of lizard people, most of which are Jewish. He has also said that the Holocaust either didn’t happen or that it was funded by Jews themselves. After the interview, Walker took to her blog to clarify, which predictably blew up in her face. She argued that Icke was “brave enough to ask the questions others fear to ask,” and that Icke in fact is not anti-Semitic. But she kept bringing up the lizard people: “the Reptilian space beings whose hybrid (part human, part reptile) descendants make our lives hell in Paradise were blue eyed devils to Malcolm X, the devil himself to my Christian parents, who never talked about eye color, which I think was not only prudent but wise, although they seemed clear enough about his sex, and as demons in many other religions, including the non-religion, Buddhism, where the advice is often to invite them in until they go away. But maybe these were other kinds of demons. Not the ones controlling not just you, but everything.”
Yikes.