13 Famous People Who Faked Their Own Deaths

You’ve probably heard the conspiracy theories that celebrities like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley faked their deaths and are secretly still alive. But did you know that quite a few famous people have ACTUALLY faked their deaths? Here are 13 of them:

1. Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank faked her own funeral for her 70th birthday in 2019. She told Boardroom, “My friends were going to give me a surprise party, and I got wind of it from my good girlfriend. She always spoils things. She just has a habit of doing it, Liz. So when Liz told me they were planning a surprise party, I said, ‘I’m going to turn the tables and surprise them.'” So, while Barbara’s friends were upstairs planning her party, she set up her prank on the lower floor of her NYC penthouse. Her brother “chased them all downstairs.” She added, “They walked into the living room and found me dead in a coffin.”

She continued, “I had set up the whole room as a funeral parlor. The chairs, the nuns, the priests, the rabbis — everybody there. And they all said what they liked about me, thinking I was dead, and what they didn’t like about me. But you know, everybody talked about me. How many people, if anyone, do you know who hears what people say about them after they’re dead? I got to hear it all. … I could hear the gasps. I had my eyes closed, and I didn’t move a second. Everybody was aghast that I was dead. They really thought I was dead — and I laid there dead for 10 minutes. It was great.”

However, the stunt led to rumors that she’d actually met her demise. She added, “The following morning, I went down, and my doorman told me I was dead. That it appeared all over social that I had died.”

2. In 2024, actor Poonam Pandey’s death at age 32 was announced on her Instagram. The post stated, “Deeply saddened to inform you that we have lost our beloved Poonam to cervical cancer. Every living form that ever came in contact with her was met with pure love and kindness.”

However, only two days later, the seemingly resurrected Poonam posted an IG video. She said, “I’m alive. I didn’t die because of cervical cancer. Unfortunately, I cannot say that about those hundreds and thousands of women who have lost their lives because of cervical cancer. It is not because they couldn’t do anything about it, because they had no idea what to do about it. I’m here to tell you that, unlike other cancers, cervical cancer is preventable. All you have to do is you have to get your tests done, and you have to get [the] HPV vaccine.”

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Fans were quick to criticize her stunt as insensitive, with one commenter writing, “Worst PR Stunt, you could have done a better way, than highlighting such a sensitive topic for so many cancer patients. Highly not appreciated.”

In a since-deleted Instagram post, Poonam admitted that the death hoax was part of a campaign with marketing agency Schbang. She said, “While I do understand how you would have perceived this in bad taste, I also implore you to consider the greater cause. … I want to assure you that this intervention was necessary. The deliberate effort made sure ‘Cervical Cancer’ got attached to 500 headlines in the same day, and if that’s the kind of impact we can bring in a day, imagine what all we can do if we decided to come together and speak up.” In a separate post, she revealed that her mom had throat cancer, so she’s aware of “how bad it gets.” She added, “Here I was just promoting something for a good cause, a cancer which is preventable, and yet so many women die.”

Poonam wasn’t paid for the campaign. In a separate statement, Schbang said, “Our actions were driven by a singular mission — to elevate awareness about Cervical Cancer. In 2022, India registered 123,907 Cervical Cancer cases and 77,348 deaths. After Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer is the second-most frequent malignancy affecting middle aged women in India.”

3. On Hot Ones, Will Forte recounted the “awful” prank he pulled at 14. He said, “I saw my mom driving in the neighborhood, and I was like, ‘Oh, this’ll be funny.’ I wrote on a piece of paper, I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry, Mom.’ And then left that at the front door, and then laid down on her bathroom floor as if I was no longer alive.”

“Hearing her scream, it was the worst! It was the worst thing. And I immediately popped up — ‘Mom, I’m kidding!'” he said. Admonishing his teenage self, he added, “Little shit freakin’ 14-year-old thinking it’s funny.”

However, the experience taught him something valuable. Will said, “It did teach me, like, ‘Oh, not everything is funny. There are things that hurt people.’ And, you know, I certainly look back at my own work, and there are regrets I have, but I don’t love comedy that hurts people or makes fun of people.”

4. As a child, Margot Robbie pulled a similar prank on her unsuspecting babysitter. She told BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, “We got a new babysitter, and I wanted my old babysitter back, Talia, who was, like, 16. I thought she was so cool. We got this much older lady in, and I was just not happy about it. She told me to go have a bath, and I didn’t want to. And she was very cranky, and I thought, ‘I’m gonna show you.’ So, I got a big kitchen knife and the ketchup, and I sprawled out naked on the tiles, covered myself in ketchup, put the kitchen knife, and I waited for, like, 45 minutes for her to find me.”

“But it was worth the wait,” she said, confirming the interviewer’s suspicion that the babysitter ran screaming from the house. Margot added, “It was very, very Harold and Maude. … I also once practiced, like, a pratfall on the cinema stairs at the shopping center where I’m from, and people started calling an ambulance. I guess I was a bit of a dramatic child.”

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5. In 2023, the daughter of TikToker Ragnar le Fou (whose real name is David Baerten) announced his death at age 45, posting, “Rest in peace Daddy. I will never stop thinking about you. Why is life so unfair? Why you? You were going to be a grandfather, and you still had your whole life ahead of you. I love you! We love you! We will never forget you.”

David’s friends and family came together for his funeral. However, as the service began, the TikToker flew in on a helicopter, declaring, “Cheers to you all, welcome to my funeral!” Some mourners hugged him, while others grew frustrated over the “joke.”

In truth, the funeral was staged, and David had conspired with his wife and kids to teach their extended family a lesson. Per the Sunday Times, he said, “What I see in my family often hurts me. I never get invited to anything. Nobody sees me. We all grew apart. I felt unappreciated. That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them.” He added that “only half of [his] family came to the funeral,” but others had reached out. He said, “That proves who really cares about me. Those who didn’t come did contact me to meet up. So in a way, I did win.”

6. In 2005, the goth metal band Type O Negative cleared most of their website and posted a photo of lead singer Peter Steele’s tombstone. Fans were obviously heartbroken and confused. However, the band later revealed that the tombstone was merely symbolic of the fact that they’d ditched their former label and signed a new record deal with SPV Records. They took the picture down.

In 2010, Peter died of sepsis at age 48. Initially, some fans didn’t believe the news, but the tragic news was all too real. After his loss, drummer Johnny Kelly, guitarist Kenny Hickey, and keyboardist Josh Silver decided to retire Type O Negative. Johnny told TV4, “Even if there is somebody who could take his place, it wouldn’t matter. We don’t have any interest in continuing. It’s impossible – it hasn’t even come up in any kind of discussion. When Peter died, Type O Negative died with him.”

7. In 2006, musician/DJ/composer Clayton Counts became known for his album Sgt. Petsound’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which mashed up the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. However, in 2008, EMI, the Beatles’ publisher, threatened him with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit and demanded the IP addresses of everyone who’d downloaded it. Clayton ultimately deleted the album after the publisher sent him a cease-and-desist, but in a lengthy statement on his website, he criticized EMI and subtly suggested a few websites that were “excellent places to look for illegal stuff you’re not supposed to download.”

He said, “They’ve threatened to sue me big time. And for what? For making something? So others would look at them as inhuman monsters, utterly incapable of recognizing art? Or is it just the distribution? Nope… all three. Or so it would seem. I shouldn’t have even made it, they claim. And they want me to give up people’s IPs. That much I can tell you because of some legal humfuddery I dreamt up, but also (and more importantly) because I have a conscience. After all, would any of you want to be sued for following a link from Entertainment Weekly ? For the record, I never sold a single copy of this piece of art—if it is art. Fair use, in your face, come and get me. You can not take my life, Capitol Recordings. Unless you do. Could happen. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

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Then, that December, Clayton’s website announced that he’d died on Christmas Eve. However, it turned out to be a prank, and he went on to release more music — including one song that lasted eight septillion years — with his duo, Bull of Heaven. When Clayton died from an overdose in 2016, his friends initially believed it was another prank. They later played a memorial show in his honor.

8. In 1999, the Austrian Press Agency announced the death of pianist Friedrich Gulda, sending the classical music world into mourning. Supposedly, he had a heart attack at the Zurich airport. However, not long after the original report, the APA released the following message: “Do not use the item ‘Austrian Pianist Gulda Dead’ — the news agency has retracted this report.” But for two days, Friedrich was nowhere to be found, and his family refused to take calls.

Then, a concert agent from Geneva informed APA that he’d seen the pianist looking “remarkably alive” and alleged that he’d asked him to file an obituary, a request the agent refused. At the time, many people speculated that Friedrich himself had faxed in his death announcement because he’d recently demanded that journalists never write an obituary about him, saying, “People have thrown so much muck at me while I am alive, I do not want them to chuck it into my grave as well.”

Others surmised it might’ve been a prank. An APA journalist told the Independent, “There are varying opinions about the question what Mr. Gulda finds funny.” However, another possibility remained — it was all promo for his upcoming “Resurrection Party” concert! But sadly, Friedrich’s story has an ironic, tragic ending. Less than a year later, he died of heart failure, and his doctor had to release his death certificate to confirm it was true.

9. Some people fake their deaths to escape accountability. In 1974, UK Member of Parliament John Stonehouse found himself in a pretty dismal situation (mostly of his own doing) — he faced financial ruin from his shady business deals; he was having an affair with his secretary; his political career was going nowhere; and, to top it all off, he was being accused of being a Communist spy. That November, he traveled to Miami for business, but then a pile of his clothes was found on the beach, leading people — including his wife, Barbara — to believe he went swimming and drowned. However, on Christmas Eve, John turned up in Australia, alive and well.

But how did he do it? To start, he stole the identities of two recently deceased men from his constituency. Then, he set up international bank accounts and transferred money from his businesses. He shipped a trunk of clothes to Australia. Next, he went to Miami, left his clothes on the shore, and caught a flight down under. Meanwhile, his secretary/girlfriend, Sheila Buckley, told people he was dead, while she was secretly calling him and sending him letters in code.

In a strange twist of fate, Melbourne police were looking for another recently missing Brit — Lord Lucan, who murdered his family’s nanny then disappeared. The cops caught wind that John had bank accounts in two different names, so, thinking he was Lucan, they investigated him. Eventually, he had to fess up, and when they let him call his wife, he told her, “Hello darling. Well, they picked up the false identity here. You would realize from all this that I have been deceiving you. I’m sorry about that, but in a sense, I’m glad it’s all over.”

After John spent a few days locked up, his family flew to Australia to be with him. Sheila followed a few days later. Speaking to BBC Australia, John attributed the hoax to his supposedly recently developed “divided personality, with the new personality providing a release to the old personality, which was under stress and strain of considerable proportions.” He also claimed he was trying to make his family’s lives easier “by taking away some of the tensions that [he] gave to them from [his] old personality.”

Throughout this whole ordeal, John was still an MP, and he balked at the idea of giving up his salary. He said, “Lots of Members of Parliament go on overseas visits and do fact-finding tours. I’ve been doing a fact-finding tour not only in terms of geography, but in terms of the inner self of a political animal. Now that tour could be very interesting and, my golly, I think it fully justifies an MP’s salary if I can get the story down of my experience. I think a Member of Parliament, like anybody else in any other job, is entitled to some consideration during a period when he has some sort of illness.”

He stayed in Australia for seven months before getting deported back to the UK. Two years later, he was tried on charges related to his businesses and sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud, theft, and deception. In 1978, Barbara divorced him. He was released from prison after only three years because he was recovering from open-heart surgery. In 1981, Sheila married him. Seven years later, he died for real.

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10. In 1985, former New Jersey State Senator David J. Friedland found himself in deep legal trouble. He was awaiting sentencing after being convicted of fraud and was also being tried for other charges that carried a potential life sentence. So, he traveled to Grand Bahama Island, faked his death by drowning, and disappeared.

But evidently, it wasn’t a very convincing hoax. US and other authorities tracked him across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Finally, he settled in the Maldives with a fake US passport, using the name Richard Smith Harley. He opened five scuba diving businesses and lived “very well.” He even posed for a local postcard. In the photo, he reportedly wore his diving gear and fed a shark from his own mouth. After about two years on the run, he was captured and returned to the States. Arthur Borinsky, the United States Marshal for New Jersey, told the New York Times, “I can only tell you that David Friedland was captured because he was really too successful. If he had elected to become low profile, he might still be at large.”

David, who was also a lawyer, represented himself in court and was sentenced to seven years in prison for his original fraud conviction. Later, he pleaded guilty to a RICO conspiracy charge and was sentenced to an additional 15 years, to be served concurrently. He was released after nine years and later died in 2022.

11. Pro wrestler Jerry Balisok, aka “Mr. X,” was believed to have died in the Jonestown Massacre — where cult leader Jim Jones led more than 900 of his followers, including children, to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid — in 1978. However, in 1990, Jerry was arrested in Washington for attempted first-degree murder. Throughout the trial, he kept up his assumed identity of Ricky Wetta or John Doe and invoked his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. But King County Detective Randy Mullinax uncovered the truth. Back in 1978, Jerry had been indicted on 13 counts of forgery connected to his motorcycle business in Alabama. So, he and his family fled to Miami, then the Bahamas.

There was a fugitive warrant out for him, but in the late ’70s, after he was presumed dead, he returned to the US under his false identity. In 1983, his forgery indictment was dismissed, and his warrant was canceled, but he was unaware. All of this was unnecessary — if he’d simply gone to court and settled his debts in ’78, he likely would’ve only gotten probation. In 1990, Jerry was convicted of attempted murder, but in 1993, it was overturned by the state Court of Appeals, which ruled that the jury created new evidence by acting out his version of events. However, the following year, the state Supreme Court reinstated the conviction. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in 2013.

12. Sometimes, it’s not the celebrity themselves starting the death rumors, but someone else with something to gain. When silent film star Florence Lawrence — aka the “first movie star” — made the jump from the Biograph Company to IMP (now Universal), she already had a famous face, but audiences didn’t know her name. Suddenly, a rumor emerged that, while filming in NYC, she’d been hit and killed by either an automobile or a streetcar. In response, IMP famously placed an ad titled, “We Nail a Lie.”

The ad copy read, “The blackest and at the same time the silliest lie yet circulated by enemies of the ‘Imp’ was the story foisted on the public of St. Louis last week to the effect that Miss Lawrence (the ‘Imp’ girl, formerly known as the ‘Biograph’ girl) had been killed by a street car. It was a black lie because so cowardly. It was a silly lie because so easily disproved. Miss Lawrence was not even in a street car accident, is in the best of health, will continue to appear in ‘Imp’ films, and very shortly, some of the best work in her career is to be released. We now announce our next films…”

Over the years, many have speculated that IMP founder Carl Laemmle planted the rumors of Florence’s death, but nothing has ever been proven. However, he definitely capitalized on the attention. Several weeks after his ad, he actually took the actor to St. Louis so that the public could see for themselves that she was still kicking.

13. And finally, not every faked death story is so serious. In 2014, Macaulay Culkin was the victim of a death hoax, with fake news websites publishing reports that he’d died at age 34. So, in a funny bid to dispel the rumors, he posted a Weekend at Bernie’s-inspired picture to his band’s Instagram.

Then, to further drive home the fact that he was a-okay, Macaulay followed up with another picture of him drinking punch. He captioned it, “We’re on tour you silly people.”

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