Interviews That Turned Out To Be Total Hoaxes

Celebrities say and do the darndest things in interviews. Remember when Charlie Sheen bragged about having tiger blood, or Morgan Freeman fell asleep on live television? You can't make this stuff up! But sometimes, reporters do make stuff up. Unfortunately, you can't believe everything you read, and sometimes, you can't even believe what you hear or see. In fact, some of the juiciest, most shocking, and intimate interviews with the stars have turned out to be complete hoaxes. 

In print interviews, writers have occasionally invented questions and the celebrity's answers to them. Manufacturing falsehoods is a little trickier with audio and video, but editors have been caught doctoring soundbites to create a misleading celebrity interview. This kind of deception has prompted lawsuits, apologies, and statements galore. It's also made one notorious fibber into a famous person in his own right. From Beyoncé's marriage contract to Mike Tyson's relationship with cockroaches, we've researched some of the most notorious celebrity interview hoaxes. 

Süddeutsche Zeitung reporter Tom Kummer's name comes up a lot on this list, but it was his supposed 1996 Courtney Love interview that exposed him as a fraud. He reported (via The New York Times) that Love told him: ”I play with my breasts, not to show off but to demonstrate a kind of revulsion. I simply transform myself into a voice for all the tormented souls of this world.”

Many editors might not question the outrageous Hole frontwoman talking about her breasts like that, but Love's reps denied ever granting Kummer an interview. In fact, editors later recognized that quote from Kummer's own description of breasts in an earlier article for a different paper. In the Swiss newspaper Welwoche, Kummer reportedly wrote, "She plays with her breasts not to show off but to demonstrate revulsion. She wants to embody the voice of all tormented souls in the world.”

Focus magazine, an SZ competitor, reportedly sounded the alarm and began questioning other Kummer interviews involving celebrities' publicists that he'd never interviewed the stars. The Guardian reported on Focus and SZ's findings, which apparently identified other fabricated quotes and/or instances when Kummer appeared to plagiarize himself. According to The Guardian, Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung "published an apology to its readers for what it describes as 'a betrayal of monumental proportions.'"

Once Tom Kummer's practice of faking celebrity interviews was exposed, many of his previous stories were reexamined and revealed to be fake, too. Like this fake Pamela Anderson interview from 1996, preserved courtesy of German apparel brand 032c. "My implants ache occasionally, but that's normal," Anderson (never) said. "I plan to breastfeed my children." Yep, it seems Kummer is really obsessed with women's breasts. 

He also claimed to have asked Anderson if she minded her then-husband Tommy Lee's tattoo of his ex, actress Heather Locklear. "I really don't care, although no one seems to believe me," Anderson allegedly replied. "I think that every man goes through countless periods of admiring different sex symbols. And they shouldn't be ashamed of that. I think Heather is a magical person. I just think she has a poor diet. That's her real tragedy."

The Daily Maverick claimed Anderson was Kummer's first fake interview. Once he earned acclaim for it, he allegedly became addicted to the recognition and manufactured more hoaxes with bigger stars saying even more outrageous things. 

When Tom Hiddleston was dating Taylor Swift, he kept his love life largely to himself (except for that notorious tank top.) However, the Avengers star really cut loose during an interview with Belgian radio show Qmusic. When the deejays asked Hiddleston about his pop star paramour, the actor sounded downright starstruck. 

"Oh, she is an absolute delight," he supposedly gushed (via E! News). "She's got such a wicked sense of humor, and she's really fun to have around. She's really great." When asked to describe his new relationship, Hiddleston apparently said, "I would describe it as a roller-coaster ride of action and spectacle, and lots of laughs." Hmm... anybody else think that last bit sounds like the way an actor might describe a movie, rather than a person?

E! News confirmed that Hiddleston's radio interview was a hoax. According to Metro UK, all that "action and spectacle" may have been words Hiddleston uttered while describing the film Crimson Peak, and all that gushing about "a wicked sense of humor" could be the way he described working with an on-screen costar. 

Tom Cruise was on top of the world — and the box office — in 1996. Mission: Impossible was the summer hit that would launch a lucrative franchise and Jerry Maguire became a holiday hit that had folks everywhere saying, "You complete me" and "Show me the money." The only obvious blemish in Cruise's big moment was a July 1996 article in Bunte magazine that claimed the actor couldn't produce biological children. Of course, that prompted the punny question: "The Top Gun shoots blanks?"

Cruise sued the German magazine for $60 million for allegedly damaging his reputation as a virile action hero. In this case, the reporter had reportedly been involved in a conversation with Cruise, but what the journalist wrote was, at best, lost in translation. According to People, Cruise was misquoted saying: "My sperm count is zero." Bunteeventually admitted that the reporter made up large parts of the interview, and Cruise dropped the lawsuit after the magazine apologized and retracted the story. In the suit, the actor asserted that his counts are "normal," by the way.

Bruce Willis was a huge star in the '90s. He'd left TV far behind and had starred in three blockbuster Die Hard films as well as the indie darling Pulp Fiction. He'd also married and divorced A-list actress Demi Moore, and the tabloids followed their relationship mercilessly. Consequently, Willis started doing fewer and fewer interviews. What's a reporter to do when a big celebrity won't grant an interview? 

If you're Tom Kummer, you make it up. "I understood pretty early on that we do not advance through morality, but immorality, vices, cynicism," Willis supposedly told the reporter (via The Guardian). Hmm... Breaking some rules may help John McClane save the day, but it's not usually the sort of thing someone brags about doing in real life. Fortunately, we now know that Willis does not actually champion immorality. At least, if he does, he never said so to Kummer.

By the way, Kummer and what he referred to as "borderline journalism" became a documentary titled Bad Boy Kummer. According to The Guardian, the film tracked down the hoax master in Los Angeles, where he "teaches paddle tennis, an aptly fraudulent sort of sport that uses smaller courts and less bouncy balls than the original."

Mike Tyson has said plenty of outrageous things in legitimate interviews. He reportedly bragged about abusing ex-wife Robin Givens. He has talked about his pigeon collection. Why would anyone need to make up an interview with the former heavyweight champion? 

When Tom Kummer and Tyson got together, the controversial reporter asked the controversial boxer to discuss the philosopher Nietzsche — something Tyson has done in authentic interviews. (Kummer must have done his research to know Tyson was a fan.) But when Kummer's published piece discussed Tyson's time in prison, the content became suspect. Kummer reported that Tyson said he would eat cockroaches as a source of protein. Now, Tyson did once say that he wanted to eat an opponent's children, but at no time has the man corroborated eating insects to maintain muscle mass. Needless to say, GQ reportedly syndicated the story.

Maybe it's a good thing Kummer's hoax habit was exposed later, instead of immediately following his Tyson tale. Because if Iron Mike sunk his teeth into this false report, Kummer might have lost more than just his journalism job.