Calling someone a fraud is pretty harsh. We can see that. Not everyone on this list deserves that title, but each of these people has been portrayed (or portrayed themselves) as something other than who they really were. Celebrities are loved and glorified everywhere they go, so being called a couple of ugly names here or there shouldn’t hurt. Besides, we typically look at celebrities as these unblemished saints that it’s grounding for us as fans to see that everything is not always as it seems. Celebrity and show business can be a tricky world to maneuver. When people are starting out, they don’t expect to become megastars, so they may stretch the truth a little or create a phony past to escape reality. These little lies may even help their careers get going. The trouble comes when these people become stars in the public eye. People like us start doing a little digging and the inconsistencies between fact and fiction come to light.
Celebrities have always lied about who they are. Sometimes, these lies are harmless. For the most part, changing names and fudging birthdates a smidge are white lies that won’t ever offend anyone. Others create entirely new identities, lying about where they come from and who they are. This can be troublesome, especially when these celebrities gain from those lies. Sometimes, these lies offend other people and cultures. So, we wanted to see which celebrities have been caught in a lie about their identity. Maybe you just never heard about it and you still have this celeb up on a pedestal for the wrong reasons. Here is a piece we call Famous Frauds: 15 Celebrities Who Are Not Who They Claim To Be.
10. Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff is the poster child for televangelist scams. This was the guy who pretended to heal members of the audience of terrible illnesses simply by touching them or praying for them. He would amaze people with his inside knowledge about the audience member’s illness and would shock the world when they were magically cured. Well, in the late ’80s, James Randi exposed Popoff for the fraud that he was. The guy had an earpiece and was being fed information about his guests. Viewership dropped, and the con artist declared bankruptcy and that was that, right? Wrong. Popoff came back. Although his shenanigans were less flagrant, he still cons people into giving him vast sums of money. Though he’s not on TV fulltime anymore, he still abuses his position and he’s still rich, as are many other televangelists who perform similar rituals.
9. Steve Rannazzisi
Steve Rannazzisi is an actor who gained quite a bit of fame on the show The League. Although the comedian had done other work before this, it was this show that made him into a star. As more and more people became interested in Rannazzisi, a story he told about being in the World Trade Center during the attacks on September 11th got a lot of attention. Rannazzisi said that he went to State University of New York at Purchase, then got a job at Merrill Lynch and was stationed on the 54th floor of the WTC on that fateful day. When describing the day of the attacks, the actor said it was pandemonium and he barely escaped death. Then, someone noticed that Merrill Lynch didn’t even have offices in the WTC. It was then revealed that Rannazzisi never worked for Merrill Lynch, he never went to SUNY at Purchase, and he was never in the WTC. Awkward. He apologized, though.
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