To celebrate April Fools' Day we take a look at Adele, Beyoncé & other stars prank and get pranked.
April Fools' Day is here and no one is safe: there’s always that one annoying little joke that catches you off guard. But when you’re a world-renowned celebrity, your sufferings are not limited to just one day—you may get pranked at any given moment. But some celebs are wiser, sneakier and a little more vicious than the others, thus becoming the pranker instead of the prankee. We scoured the Internet to find the best celeb pranks out there, and below is our Top 8:
Adele Dresses Up As Adele
A big part of Adele’s appeal is that she’d never shy away from a good laugh. And what can be funnier than turning up to your doppelgangers' gathering with a fake nose and making everyone think you’re ‘the fake you’? Seeing these ladies watch Adele on stage and finally realizing that it’s actually Adele (don’t get lost, please) is priceless.
Rihanna Stalks Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel’s fascination with pranks is well-documented on his show, but what happens when a player gets played? He wakes up in the middle of the night to Rihanna and her squad giving him an impromptu performance in his bedroom. Wet dream for Rihanna’s fans, it was more of a rude awakening to Jimmy, but he still seemed to enjoy the show. Because, who wouldn’t?
Joaquin Phoenix Turns to Hip-Hop
How long do you think it takes to come up with and prepare a good joke? An hour? A day? Try two years! That’s how long it took actor Joaquin Phoenix and his brother-in-law/director Casey Affleck to come up with the idea of a mockumentary I’m Still Here, and then set a string of hilarious events in motion. The reality TV-mocking flick was preceded by Joaquin announcing his retirement from acting due to the newly discovered hip-hop aspiration; a string of shockingly awkward public appearances and constant battle on trying to get Diddy to produce his record. All in the name of art, obviously. The fans had to suffer through two years of this madness before the movie finally hit theaters and Phoenix could finally let go of the act and all of the extra weight he had gained.
Deadmau5 Creates Faux-Genre
The Canadian progressive house producer deserves a crown in the shape of mouse ears as the ultimate king of pranks—his prank call to Skrillex video is still a viral sensation—but it’s April Fool’s Day when Joel Zimmerman (yep, that's his real name) really thrives. In 2014 he staged a fake hack of his social media. And last year deadmau5 announced he was changing his sound and premiered a short clip of “meowingtonsStep” record, which, unfortunately, featured zero meows.
Chelsea Pranks Everyone
A lot of people love to prank, fewer like to get pranked, but there aren’t many who can proudly say that they’ve literally written a book on pranking. Well, the funny lady named Chelsea Handler, whose newest Netflix show premieres in May, can. In 2010, she finally admitted most of her crimes by publishing a book titled Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me that featured essays from her colleagues, friends and family member (i.e.: victims) giving detailed description of all the pranks Chelsea had successfully pulled off. Trying to ruin a friend’s honeymoon? Check. Making your friend believe he’s gonna get sued? Check. Faking a dog’s death to "amuse" your boyfriend? Bark!
Paris Hilton (Almost) Goes Down
To spend One Night In Paris, first you need to fly there. And something tells us that after getting pranked this hard, Paris Hilton changed her views on flying. Last summer The Simple Life alumni boarded a private jet in Egypt only to be convinced the plane is about to crash and she has to jump off it to survive (which is a tricky thing to pull off in a designer’s gown and a pair of high-heels). Watching the video, which turned out to be just a routine stunt from the prank TV show Ramez In Control, is almost physically uncomfortable—it’s been a while since we got so worried over Paris’ safety. It was later rumored that Paris was in on the joke, which is easier to believe if you remember that she did quite a good job on set of a horror flick House of Wax 10 years ago. The prank that pranked us? That’s some serious inception stuff right there, guys.
Jessica Lowndes Fakes Romance
This one’s fresh from the oven and we reported on it just recently. 90210 graduate/singer Jessica Lowndes recruited SNL legend Jon Lovitz for the music video of the remixed version of her newest single “Déjà vu”. The emoji-heavy sarcastic video was preceded by a fake Instagram-exclusive romance with Jessica teasing "there’s a new man in my life" all over social media. Guess you don’t need a huge PR team to hype up both your career and personal life anymore—a couple of well-filtered shots will do the trick.
Beyoncé Ruins Christmas
We’d be crazy not to put at least one of the infamous episodes of Punk’d on our list, and we have to go with Queen Bey. Her moment of horror included lighting up a Christmas tree at a charity event and “accidentally” knocking it down (with her superstar powers apparently) over some poor bystander, while the kids chant “You ruined Christmas!” Now that’s neither a sweet dream nor a beautiful nightmare!