Celebrities Who May Have Never Been Pregnant
If there's one thing the Internet loves, it's a really good conspiracy theory. Add that to a celebrity scandal, and you've got yourself a combination that could—and one day probably will—break the Internet. In recent years, online bloggers and commenters have taken a special interest in celebrity pregnancies, resulting in some of the wackiest and admittedly hilarious theories we've come across in some time.
Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson stunned the world when she announced she was expecting her first child at age 49. Perhaps unsurprisingly, an announcement that jaw-dropping didn't sit well with some people on the Internet, including insiders for Radar Online who claim that she's not actually expecting anything at all. There were also theories floating out there on the Internet claiming that Jackson, now 50, was even wearing a fake baby bump to hide the fact that she is using a surrogate. The next thing you know, these conspiracy theorists will be telling us that Neil Armstrong didn't actually land on the Moon.
In any case, Jackson and her husband, Wissam Al Mana, welcomed a baby boy in January 2017 and split shortly thereafter. Jackson confirmed the couple had split in a video message posted in April that year.
Coco Austin
Coco Austin—aka the wife of Ice T—had her pregnancy called into question in September 2015 after the seven-months-pregnant reality TV star posted a full-body selfie to Twitter that revealed only a tiny baby bump. Naturally, the blogs had a field day with the post, forcing Austin to defend the size of her baby-to-be on Instagram.
A week after she gave birth to Chanel Nicole in late-November 2015, Coco posted yet another photo...looking like she was never actually pregnant to begin with. But Coco had a simple explanation for how she stayed so trim: fruit. "I was basically in shape before I got pregnant but during pregnancy I stopped my workout regimen at 4 months preggers and pretty much became a fruitarian after that lol," she wrote.
Beyonce
In 2011, a pregnant Beyonce became the subject of hundreds of Internet conspiracy theories after footage leaked online that allegedly showed her baby bump folding as she sat down to give an interview. Some claimed the baby bump was just a prop; others claimed she wasn't pregnant at all and she was using a surrogate; many claimed both, among other kooky theories. For her part, Beyonce has addressed the rumors multiple times. She referred to them as "just crazy" during a PEOPLE exclusive cover story in 2012. She also referred to the rumors as "stupid" in her 2013 documentary for HBO, adding: "[It's] the most ridiculous rumor I think I've ever had about me." She even went so far as to show her baby bump in the documentary, plus footage from her delivery room during her On the Run tour with husband Jay-Z. And yet, the conspiracy theories live on. Because that's just what the Internet does.
Katie Holmes
Katie Holmes' pregnancy rivals Beyonce's as the biggest generator of online conspiracy theories ever, at least as far as preggo celebrities go, anyway. From the get-go, many online users doubted that Holmes and then-fiance Tom Cruise's pregnancy was legit, amid the duo's bizarre, quick, couch-jumping courtship. In fact, things eventually got so out of hand that a handful of blogs began to scrutinize the size of Holmes' baby bump, speculating that it was actually decreasing in size as her pregnancy reached its final stages. More conspiracy theories followed after Cruise and Holmes' daughter, Suri Cruise, was finally born. One example: after the tabloids failed to get their hands on photos of the newborn, many started to wonder if Suri was actually real. Naturally, speculation has died down over the years, though that hasn't stopped stories from creeping up every now and again. Among the craziest: a 2012 rumor that claimed Holmes' former boyfriend, Chris Klein, was actually Suri's father.
Kim Kardashian
After announcing she was pregnant with her second child with husband Kanye West, reality TV star Kim Kardashian was hit by a number of Internet conspiracy theorists who questioned whether her pregnancy was actually legit. The reason: some people seemed to think she just wasn't big enough to be pregnant. In true Kim Kardashian fashion, the 35-year-old starlet silenced her haters in August 2015 by posting a naked selfie that revealed her baby bump in all of its glory. "First they say I'm too skinny so I have to be faking it...now they say I'm too big so I have to be faking it...SMH!" Yeah—you can't argue with that selfie.
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow set forth one of the all-time biggest pregnancy conspiracy theories in 2013 when she admitted to Vanity Fair magazine that her former lover Frank Sinatra was "possibly" the father of her now-27-year-old son, Ronan, and not, you know, Woody Allen. The story added more fuel to the nasty fire that has been burning ever since Allen left Farrow for their adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. At one point, even Sinatra's daughter, Nancy, stepped in to deny Farrow's accusation, calling it "nonsense." To his credit, Ronan took the story in stride, tweeting on October 2, 2013: "Listen, we're all *possibly* Frank Sinatra's son." Hey—he's got a point. Meanwhile, take a look at Ronan and decide for yourself who might be his daddy. We know who we're betting on...
Sarah Palin
During Sarah Palin's disastrous bid for the White House in 2008, a handful of conspiracy theorists speculated that the former Vice Presidential candidate was pretending that her special-needs son, Trig, was her own as a cover for her then-teenage daughter, Bristol. Naturally, Palin's camp denied the reports—but that hasn't stopped people from digging more into the theories. In 2011, for example, Bradford Scharlott, a professor at Northern Kentucky University, wrote an academic article about the Bristol-Trig theories, concluding that they were probably true after all.