Friends was all in Phoebe’s mind, Melania is a myth – and so is Minaj’s music. Here are some of the strangest urban legends from TV, music, film and politics

10 popular myths debunked Read more

1. Megan Fox is one of a series of clones

The fad for “Celebrity X died and was replaced by a lookalike” theories is old hat, especially when compared to the “Megan Fox is a constantly updated synthetic clone of herself named Fegan who was created when the original Megan refused to act as a sex icon for the Illuminati” theory perpetuated by one online forum in 2009. How else can you explain her constantly changing look? Plastic surgery? Nope!

2. Stephen King killed John Lennon

I know you believe Mark Chapman killed John Lennon. But what if I told you that Lennon was actually murdered by beloved novelist Stephen King? This is the theory posited by a man who once interrupted a town council meeting in Florida to talk about it. The proof? King looks a bit like Chapman in certain lights if you squint. CONSPIRACY.

3. Taylor Swift is a renowned satanist

You’ve never seen Taylor Swift and noted satanist Zeena Schreck (daughter of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan) in a room together, have you? No, even though they’re nearly identical. Is this because a) Schreck and Swift are one and the same, and Swift is desperate to keep her real identity hidden, or b) They are obviously different people because Schreck is 36 years older than Swift? We’ll never know for sure, but the last one.

4 Beyoncé’s fake bump

Blue Ivy Carter was born on 7 January 2012. However, three months earlier, she was the subject of much speculation. During an appearance on an Australian talkshow, Beyoncé’s pregnancy bump appeared to roam around and squash in on itself as she sat down. Was she exaggerating the size of her bump with a prosthetic? Was she even pregnant at all? Maybe we’ll never really know.

5 Beyoncé is Solange’s mum

Beyoncé Knowles is 36 years old. Her sister Solange is 31. That is, if they really are sisters. An unnamed Texas Department of Health worker once claimed that Beyoncé was actually born in 1974. The theory goes that Beyoncé got pregnant young, her parents raised the baby, who then grew up to be Solange. Which clearly explains everything.

6 Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson got married and had a bunch of kids

Twilight stars Stewart and Pattinson were once an item, but split up long ago. However, in 2014 it was rumoured that they got back together for one magical night and Stewart ended up pregnant. This was backed up by a dietician who told a magazine that Stewart was definitely pregnant because she looked bigger than normal. Also they got married in secret and Katy Perry was a bridesmaid. Who knew?

Top 10 urban legends Read more

7 Nicki Minaj is Jay-Z sped up

Have you ever listened to Super Bass slowed down? You should, because it makes Nicki Minaj sound exactly like Jay-Z. And have you ever listened to any Jay-Z song sped up? Again, you should because it makes Jay-Z sound exactly like Minaj. And this can only mean one thing: “Nicki Minaj” is an actor, skilled in the art of lip-syncing, who was hired by Jay-Z to increase his fortune. It all makes perfect sense.

8 Kubrick faked the moon landing

An oldie but a goodie. When 2001: A Space Odyssey was in the late stages of post-production, Stanley Kubrick was approached by Nasa to secretly direct the first three moon landings on a soundstage using Nasa lenses. How did the US government force Kubrick to take part in such a shadowy cover-up? Could it be that they used his younger brother Raul’s involvement in the American Communist party for leverage? It could.

9 Madonna’s fall was just a publicity stunt

During her 2015 Brit awards performance, Madonna suffered a wardrobe malfunction. Her cape – due to be removed by her dancers – was tied around her neck too tightly, which meant that the dancers basically yanked her down some steps. Or did they? Could the whole thing have been planned as a way to get headlines? Go back and look at Madonna’s face as she fell. Does it say: “I’m in serious trouble here”, or does it say: “The front page of the Sun is MINE!?” Or, is it basically expressionless because the whole thing occurred in a microsecond? Nobody truly knows but her.

10 The ghost of a little boy haunted Three Men and a Baby

Notoriously, the ghost of a boy stalked Three Men and a Baby. You can see him peek sadly from behind a curtain. It is suggested he lived in the apartment where the film was being shot, and he killed himself with a shotgun. However, it turns out that the boy was simply a cardboard Ted Danson cut-out, and the film was shot on a soundstage.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Don’t start me up ... Mick Jagger is lost for words. Photograph: Paul White/AP

JK Rowling doesn't exist: conspiracy theories the internet can't resist Read more

11 Vivendi inserts Mick Jagger’s name into songs to promote the Rolling Stones

At the turn of the decade, pop songs started referencing Mick Jagger like nobody’s business. Ke$ha’s Tik Tok; Black Eyed Peas’ The Time (Dirty Bit); Heart and Soul by the Jonas Brothers; and Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger were all released in 2010. Is it a coincidence, or was French mass-media conglomerate Vivendi trying to boost the popularity of recent signees the Rolling Stones by inserting their name into contemporary songs? Maybe we’ll never know.

12 Friends was Phoebe’s hallucination

This is less a theory and more a funny tweet that someone wrote once. But what if the entirety of the sitcom Friends took place in the mind of a meth-addicted Phoebe? What if she was a woman who morbidly gazed into the window of a coffee shop and mentally inserted herself into the lives of its blandly attractive customers? Wouldn’t that all make sense? Wouldn’t that all make a bit too much sense?

13 The final episode of Breaking Bad was Walt’s life flashing before his eyes

Similarly, the final episode of Breaking Bad ties things up a little too neatly for some people’s liking. That’s because it was all a vision experienced by Walter White as he slowly froze to death in a snow-covered New Hampshire car that he couldn’t start. Also, while we’re here, that opening shot of snow against the windscreen? That’s definitely a mockery of HBO’s static ident. Reject Vince Gilligan and that’s the sort of sick burn you can expect to receive.

14 Rihanna can’t wink

Think you’ve seen Rihanna wink? Think you’ve seen any number of clips where Rihanna winks? Think again. If you look closely, you’ll see that they’re all actually blinks. For 95% of the duration of Rihanna’s so-called winks, Rihanna is closing one eye. But when the time comes to seal the deal, the other eye comes crashing down at the same time. Rihanna cannot wink. She just wants you to think she can.

15 Marisa Tomei won an Oscar by mistake

Long before the La La Land and Moonlight mix-up, there was Marisa Tomei. The rumour goes that Vanessa Redgrave was the true and just winner of the 1993 best supporting actress Oscar, but Jack Palance accidentally read out Tomei’s name, and the Academy was too mortified to correct itself. Admittedly, the rumour has been widely disproved, and this year’s Oscars proved what actually happens when the presenter screws up like this, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Weapon of mass distraction ... Miley Cyrus gives the internet rumour-mill the finger. Photograph: Theo Wargo/WireImage

The Guardian view on conspiracy theories: convenient fictions | Editorial Read more

16 Miley Cyrus was a tool of distraction hired by the Obama administration

In 2014, Korn frontman Jonathan Davis told TMZ that Miley Cyrus had been hired by Barack Obama to distract everyone from a sweeping new law he wanted to pass. He said: “The thing with the whole Miley Cyrus stuff at the VMAs, when that went down, Obama passed a law that made him basically a dictator. He can imprison whoever he wants. He doesn’t have to charge them, he can hold them as long as he wants.” Next time a young pop star provocatively waggles a foam finger in public, don’t be so easy fooled.

17 Louis Tomlinson had a fake baby

Last January, One Direction star Louis Tomlinson welcomed a new baby called Freddie. Except he didn’t, and the baby is a doll. The theory is too labyrinthine to get into here, but it involves a woman having twins, an Instagrammer who resembles Tomlinson’s partner, hair length, birth dates, image manipulation and a clip of Tomlinson throwing a doll off a stage. It’s complicated, but it’s this level of intricate detective work that makes the internet so invaluable.

18 Walt Disney’s body has been cryogenically frozen

Walt Disney arranged for his body to be lowered into a chamber of liquid nitrogen at the point of death until technology had advanced enough to thaw him out and bring him back to life. Unfortunately, this has been disproven. Disney was cremated two days after his death in 1966, ruling out the possibility of him coming back to life and being really disappointed about how The Rescuers Down Under turned out.

19 Klaatu were actually the Beatles

In 1966, the Beatles recorded a follow-up to Revolver, but the tapes somehow went missing. Unable to re-record them due to Paul McCartney’s (supposed) death, the album was lost to the sands of time. However, it was rediscovered in 1976 and released with the name 3:47 EST under the guise of a band named Klaatu. The first song on the album is Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, which is easily as good as any song recorded by the Beatles.

Why fans think Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a clone named Melissa Read more

20 Obama killed Joan Rivers

In July 2014, Joan Rivers made a tasteless joke about Barack Obama being gay and Michelle Obama being transgender. She was given the opportunity to apologise but refused. Two months later, she was dead. Luckily, Infowars host Alex Jones was able to put the pieces together as a grand conspiracy, saying of her death last year: “Dead on arrival. Shoot your mouth off, honey. You will die. Mua ha ha ha. Liberal. Ha ha!”

21 David Carradine was murdered by ninjas

David Carradine died during an apparent sex act in a Bangkok hotel wardrobe. But what if the Kung Fu star’s body was just put in that position post-death by angry ninjas in order to embarrass his family? Carradine’s lawyer refused to rule that out. “David was very interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies,” he told Larry King. “What that means is connected to martial arts … And so there is a suspicion that if there was some foul play, that that may be the first area where they should look.”

22 Bowser is the real victim of Super Mario

Throughout the entire Super Mario timeline, we only see things from the perspective of Princess Peach, the helpless victim whom Mario must rescue from the clutches of Bowser. We never learn anything of Bowser’s hopes or dreams or motivations. Four years ago, a Reddit user posited a hypothesis: “What if Princess Peach is really just using the Mario games as propaganda to lead you to believe that Bowser is the villain, when in reality Peach is an evil dictator who wants to oppress the people of the Mushroom Kingdom?” Doesn’t that make sense?

23 Fake Melania

Surely Melania Trump has left her husband by now. Surely her overt misery has toppled over into a formal separation. And, if that’s the case, then the scowling woman in sunglasses who often stands behind Donald Trump at public events is a decoy lookalike, right?

24 One of the Munchkins killed himself and his body can be seen during The Wizard of Oz

During a Yellow Brick Road scene in The Wizard of Oz, you can see what looks like the hanging body of a Munchkin who killed himself on set before cameras started rolling. Except it isn’t a dead Munchkin; it’s the shadow of one of several large birds the studio borrowed from a zoo to make the film look more exotic. So it’s still quite cruel, if that helps.

25 Marilyn Manson was Kevin’s friend in The Wonder Years

In The Wonder Years, Kevin Arnold’s best friend was the lovably geeky Paul Pfeiffer. Now, what if I told you that the actor who played Pfeiffer grew up to be the notorious shock-rocker Marilyn Manson? They look alike. Actually, the real actor behind Pfeiffer was Josh Saviano, who starred in three episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit between 2014 and 2015 and is also a successful lawyer in his own right. But that’s what they want you to think, isn’t it?