A person’s memory is a tricky thing that likes to play games with its host. From forgetting important details to distorting memories, it can lead to, let’s say, some interesting situations.
For instance, recalling something that happened in pop culture but having no way to prove it — especially when even the internet seems clueless. That’s what we’re going to talk about today — from examples of such incidents to the reasons behind them. So, let’s jump in, shall we?
More info: Reddit
Olivia Munn outlining all the cosmetic work she’d had done in an Instagram post.
Maybe 10-11 years ago, when she’d emerged with a totally new face, people were asking her on Instagram what she’d had done and she made a post with basically an itemized list including the specific kind of laser etc.
Later, she deleted that post and just said she was exercising and eating lots of Japanese sweet potatoes to build collagen and I was never able to find screenshots of that original post. Kind of a shame! I found it refreshing for a celebrity to actually admit to the amount of work and money it takes to look the way they do.
Not sure if this counts, but I swear I saw a video of Trump, back in the 80s or 90s, stating that if he ever went into politics he would run as a Republican because Republicans are the stupidest group of voters. Apparently, fact checkers say this was just a rumor and he never actually said it. Guess I’m nuts.
Prince William’s black face party photos but the royal family did their job and got it removed from the internet forever.
We have to admit that pop culture and all things related to celebrities can sometimes feel quite overwhelming. There’s always something happening everywhere, all at once (yes, that’s a nod to the 2022 film starring Michelle Yeoh) – from the South Korean entertainment scene to Hollywood and beyond.
In fact, such overwhelmingness is a reason why phenomena like the Mandela Effect are a thing. If you don’t know what it is, in a nutshell, it’s false memories that a group of people believe. The focus of this effect can be something rather insignificant, like people fully believing that the children’s book “The Berenstain Bears” was actually called “The Berenstein Bears.”
The audio from a radio interview where Victoria Beckham does a pitch perfect impression of Donald Duck. There’s an excerpt on it, but I can’t find the audio, and I tried hitting up the morning show host that interviewed her to see if he had it, but I don’t think it ever surfaced.
I’m pretty sure that at some point I read how Beyoncé said that she is not happy with how word feminist has such negative connotations and that she suggests to call it something more fun, like bootylicious
This was way before her feminism era, but I cannot find it anymore.
This is totally not what you’re looking for but i stg in Boston on the 4th of July in 2016 there was a shrek firework and no one else remembers it except for my boyfriend.
At the same time, it can also be used to fuel conspiracy theories. Granted, some theories can also be kind of insignificant, but others can be dangerous, as they might seek to disrupt the political, societal, or any other climate. So, we probably don’t have to tell you how people misremembering things can be used to fuel conspiracy theories even further.
But that’s a complex topic to discuss. We would much rather indulge in something a little lighter today, like how the Mandela effect and other forms of misremembering can disrupt people’s knowledge of pop culture.
There was an article in J14 in like 2008 where Miley acknowledged her face looking puffy “from crying over the nick breakup” and she said no it’s puffy from the sodium in all the McDonald’s fries I’ve been eating and I think about it all the time.
Reese Witherspoon shouting “I am an American!” While getting arrested
I swear in the early 2010s there was still evidence of Channing Tatum talking about being bisexual in interviews and now it’s just gone. .
Today’s list is kind of on point here. It’s full of moments related to various celebrities or other pop culture phenomena that netizens in this online thread swear they remember happening. Only the thing is that they cannot find any proper proof online that it did, which, as you imagine, is very frustrating.
What makes all of them even more interesting (or we should say funnier) is how random all of them are. In here, you’ll find both Shrek fireworks and a Jerry Springer cheating scandal – a little bit of everything. Just shows how a variety of things can confuse people.
Lindsay Lohan trying to abduct children off the streets in Dubai.
Not fully scrubbed but ScarJo saying she’s friends with Obama and he personally contacted her via email and then Obama denying this straight away. She then tried to publicly get tickets to his inauguration and she wasn’t invited lol.
Mine’s not scandalous but I remember so clearly watching Ellie Goulding do a live performance on some show and when she finished, the presenter of the show thanked her and for some reason the topic got onto toilet paper and Ellie Goulding said something along the lines of ‘you know when you run out of toilet paper and you’re just left with the cardboard roll so you have to wipe with that’ and the presenter just looking at her like ‘…no’
At this point I feel like I’ve made it up. I’ve never seen it since and no one I’ve talked to has seen it but I just found it so hilarious.
At the same time, we can’t be guaranteed that all of these people are simply misremembering things (of course, some of them likely are). There’s also a thing called “lost media.” As the name suggests, it’s a piece of media that is believed to no longer exist in any format (or at least it cannot be located).
While usually it refers to things like movies, TV, radio broadcasts, video games, and music, it’s likely that some celebrity rumors can become lost too.
Early Lady Gaga, when she was figuring out what she wanted her personality to be, did an interview that was posted to Perez Hilton (🤮). The “reporter” asked what she looked for in a man. And in the worst British accent of all times, she responded “a biiig c**k.” This interview is NOWHERE.
A lot of Oprah stuff has “mysteriously” disappeared, but one I know specifically is her original interview with James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, as part of her book club.
Of course, her interview confronting him later about it is easy to find still…!
When the UK was talking about legalising gay marriage I SWEAR I remember Mary Berry saying she was against it, or writing a column against it or something.
This was years ago and it tainted my opinion of Mary Berry when I first watched Bake Off, and when I met my wife she ALSO had the exact same memory. Only for us to both try to find it and… absolutely nothing.
It all depends on how widespread they were. For instance, if the rumor was just discussed on some rather unknown forum, where only a handful of people interacted with it and a celebrity never addressed it publicly, odds are not many people are going to remember it. Or maybe it wasn’t even true, just some lies started by someone hoping it would take off; some people love doing that.
Either way, whether the pop culture moments in this list are made up, lost media, or the Mandela effect, it doesn’t change the fact that folks just can’t find proof of any of them. But maybe you can? If you do, just share with us in the comments!
Sinbad playing as a genie in a movie.
Pictures of the contents from Paris Hilton’s storage unit/parisexposed.com.
Omg I was just thinking about something today to show and a friend and couldn’t find it. When Vanessa Hudgens was in her high school musical era and she’s on a red carpet somewhere and an interviewer asked her something along the lines of what have you accomplished this year or like what are you proud of right now and she says “well I finally got down to 100 pounds” and starts talking about how proud that she is to have hit the 100 pound mark.
It was such a testament to that time period where everyone looked like bobble heads and that was the ideal body.
Jerry springer cheated on his wife with a guest.
Sometimes I think about that TLC or MTV show where they filmed rich kids sweet sixteen birthday parties and wonder what happened to those brats. That one girl who got a sportscar (?brand?) and got super mad bc it wasn’t a different brand and she cursed out her mom like crazy.
Ben Foster and Robin Wright Penn’s on/off relationship, and specifically Scientology’s role in driving them apart. Ben openly being a Scientologist in general has been wiped from the internet but a few other old celebrity gossip hounds always remember too so I know I didn’t actually imagine it.
The beef between Ariana Grande and Victoria Justice when Ariana Grande went on Ask.FM or whatever it was called and said the reason Victorious was ending is because “one girl wanted to go on tour” alluding to Victoria. Then Victoria went on Twitter and called her a phony for trying to throw a friend under the bus. I feel like no one knows about this.
Vanessa Carlton on a red carpet saying how some fans would tell her that her music inspired them in their darkest moments and kept them from committing suicide, which she found incredibly off putting (maybe she said it was “weird”?), but that sometimes little girls would tell her she’d inspired them to learn piano and she really liked *that*.
It was tone deaf to say the least.
Billy corgan on Alex jones praising trump and shilling for AJs pseudo vitamin powder bs.
Beyonce drunk in the green sequin dress is one I Google every once and awhile to see if her people are still on top of keeping the photos off the internet. The other legendary Beyonce missing image is her flipping off the TRL photo booth with Destiny’s Child.
Why is it so hard to find that clip of the little girl from *The Ring* accepting an MTV movie award and then getting into character while giving her speech? Tried to show it to my boyfriend after he watched the movie with me for this first time. Couldn’t find it anywhere.
Not a moment per se, but I remember clear as day reading a girl’s vent on reddit a couple years back about her friend’s difficulty living life as Justin Timberlake’s secret child (I think he had cheated on Britney Spears). The girl apparently spends time with Justin and his family and goes to his concerts, but everything is very much under the radar. I think she said back then she wanted to expose her situation and would sometimes post cryptic comments on Justin’s and his wife’s socials, which his team would promptly erase from existence?
I wish someone else had the thought to screenshot it so we could do a deep dive.
A film festival review where Roger Ebert talks about a younger actress being rude and cutting in line or stealing an elevator or something and telling him “don’t you know who I am?” I don’t remember who or why, but this was around the time he’d started dealing with cancer and I remember something about how it was out of nowhere and made him feel really bad. I swear I read the actual review and some gossip site headlines about it and when I went to look for it years later, it was gone.
Mikey Way cheating on his then-wife with an young fan years before they got a divorce. IIRC the fan was legal when the affair started, but they first met when she was 13. I want to say this was common knowledge in MCR circles at the time, but I think people aging out of fandom + other more public issues (Gerard’s sobriety) + fandom spaces like message boards and LiveJournal going extinct have removed any trace of this.
Cardi B, early days, on a talk show, talking about how she wouldn’t expect loyalty from her future husband because of her own entanglements with married men.
I always want to reference it when people talk(ed) about Offset cheating on her (again) because, to me, she went into marriage expecting a degree of cheating.
Michael Bublé cheating on his then fiancée Emily Blunt with a fan. The fan posted a pic of Michael in bed sleeping. Now you can’t find that pic anywhere on the internet or the article.
Lana lying about the year she was born.
Sooo much celeb stuff got scrubbed from the internet the summer of 2020. PR teams were working overtime. I noticed all Pete Davidsons old breakfast club interviews were taken down.
Alexander Skarsgard calling Lady Gaga fat. It only exists in gossip forums now but I swear I read it in a magazine and he gave me the ick since.
I’m sure I remember Courtney Love and Drew Barrymore dating back in the 90s but apparently they were only ever just slightly flirty friends.
