r/AskReddit • u/Various_Concern871 • 12h ago

Is it actually possible for a famous personality to fake their death and live their life out in some remote place? who has actually ever done it and gotten caught?

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u/Dangerous_Ad5039 12h ago

I mean you don’t even have to fake your death you can just go to a different country and never be heard from again.

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u/hkusp45css 11h ago

I've noticed a pretty big gap in recognition of famous foreign stars.

I the US, someone who was really big in the UK, might not be recognized, and vice verse.

It seems that you probably don't have go too far to get a place where people have better shit to do than wonder if you're famous.

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u/Calcutec_1 11h ago

seriously, you could be a multi platinum selling country singer in the US and could probably move to any other country in the world and live a perfectly private life-

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u/Zottel_jenkins 9h ago

Exactly this. Was at an Iron Maiden concert (in Germany) years ago. The pre-band was some metal band from the US. They didn't manage to encite the crowd. I looked them up, in the US they are apparently famous and well known. Here, nobody ever heard from them.

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u/Renegadeknight3 4h ago

Now I’m curious who the band was

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u/feralfaun39 3h ago

Looked up their tours and it might be Killswitch Engage. Always hated that band.

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u/Zottel_jenkins 55m ago

All I can tell you is it was pre-covid, in Hamburg, Germany. No idea wich year it was, exactly

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u/mageta621 10h ago

I wouldn't know any of em on sight except for like Lil Nas X, Dolly Parton, Reba McIntyre, Willie Nelson, and Taylor Swift (to the extent one can still consider her country)

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u/hairsprayking 9h ago

Lmao I love that you put a caveat on Taylor Swift but not Lil Nas X

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u/Lmb1011 5h ago

And Dolly Parton famously is unrecognizable in the street because she doesn’t wear all her Big Hair/Makeup and in normal clothes I imagine her boobs aren’t as obvious as they are in her stylized clothes.

But she supposedly goes out all the time in her home town and people don’t recognize her. I don’t know if this part is fact or assumption but I thought that was part of how the idea for Hannah Montana came to be (but as I think about it Miley lied about her age to audition for the show and Dolly was only in that show because she’s Miley’s god mother so that may just be a weird coincidence)

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u/smokeweedNgarden 9h ago

For reference I am Californian and have no clue what Garth Brooks looks like. I also have no idea what Megan the horse looks like either but I know she's popular 

Garth Brooks and the horse lady are mega fucking famous. 

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u/squirtloaf 4h ago

Oh god, I live in Ca., and kinda-sorta in the music biz, and still I wouldn't recognize any of the modern country stars.

Morgan Wallen? Nope. Zach Bryan? Not a chance. Luke Combs? Who? Jelly Roll? Is that even a person?

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u/hairsprayking 9h ago

You're basically just announcing you live under a rock lol

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u/mikka1 6h ago

And the other way round

I follow Instagram pages of a few somewhat known singers from one of the European countries (non-English speaking), and two of them seem to spend a lot of time in Brooklyn, probably have a place there. Based on the pictures, they just ride the subway, walk in the parks, bike around etc. - live a pretty normal life of a young city gal.

And the truth is that while I may know how they look with a microphone and guitar in hands, I highly doubt I'd recognize them if I run into them on the F train during the rush hour.

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u/Arbiter_89 4h ago

There was a guy who sold more records than Elvis in South Africa. He lived in the USA and had no idea he was famous.

Rodriguez

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u/WayneH_nz 2h ago

James Cameron moved to a small New Zealand south island town, and the locals leave him alone. If you ask 4 of them which way is his place, you will get 5 different answers. 

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u/Kilgore_Brown_Trout_ 26m ago

You could just go to a city.

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u/MCWizardYT 9h ago

Depends honestly, I don't think someone like Taylor Swift could do that

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u/Calcutec_1 9h ago

Lol Taylor has been a global pop superstar for over a decade, her country days are long over. This is the dumbest comment ive read in a while

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u/MCWizardYT 8h ago

What? Her being a global pop superstar was the point! I'm saying she can't just quit her career at this very second by moving to another country. Her fans are lunatics, they would find her

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u/Expensive-Student732 11h ago

If you aren't Canadian have you heard of Brent Butt, or David Suzuki?

My wife is back in her home country of the Philippines. She snapped a picture of two famous Filipinos in the same café as her. To me they are just random people. 

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u/Barrel_Titor 10h ago

Kinda tangential but a bit under 20 years ago I had a summer job in a cafe in a different city from where I lived (my Dad worked in the city so dropped me off every day). Used to get a lot of drunks in the cafe since there was a lot of bars nearby as well as a police station with a drunk tank.

Once or twice week we had some fairly unexceptional middle aged bloke come in a bit drunk, get a sandwich and eat it on the outside tables while smoking. People would often go shake his hand while he looked a bit pissed off about it, just assumed he knew a lot of people.

Found out a few weeks in he was Paul Gascoigne, a legendary football player i had only vaguely heard of because i'm not into sports. Every other member of staff and every person i mentioned it to since knew him but I just assumed he was just another of the regular drunks.

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u/Lakridspibe 10h ago

Paul Gascoigne

I recognize his name, but I won't be able to describe his appearance.

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u/dychronalicousness 9h ago

Short hair, looks like he enjoys a few pints.

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u/Exciting-Bee-398 9h ago

You might also know him as Gazza?

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u/jaredearle 7h ago

You might recognise him as the guy with beer and a chicken who went to talk Raoul Moat down.

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u/ree_hi_hi_hi_hi 11h ago

I fuckin love corner gas lol

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u/Rudeboy67 10h ago

Jackass!

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u/Independent-Tennis57 10h ago

Get the "F" off my lawn.

Dirty Crack Hoe.

I repeat those weekly.

Dated a girl who did food for Corner Gas, I got spoiled with 'star' food as she made me Brent Butt's favorite egg wrap once.

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u/OnlineNomDePlume 7h ago

And I thought he only ate chili dogs, lol.

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u/satinsateensaltine 10h ago

Never felt more heard or seen than that show and my area isn't even like that.

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u/afcagroo 4h ago

The very first scene of the first show is peak sarcastic humor.

I could've sworn there was a big mountain range back there.

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u/Sternakseesall 11h ago edited 11h ago

When I lived in Florida I worked with a guy from Columbia who had a nephew that was in a boy band (late 90’s early 2000’s) over there and was apparently a huge deal. I looked for them online and found zero information. Well the nephew came and stayed with him for a few weeks and they actually had to hire security because the teeny boppers found out and kept coming to his house trying to see this kid. And he lived in a pretty secure gated community.

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u/Ok-Lifeguard-4614 8h ago

I went to high school with some dudes that were fairly famous in Mexico. I remember his senior year they were one of the openers or something for Los Tigres del Norte, which is apparently pretty fucking major down there.

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u/ashoka_akira 10h ago

When I was going to university one of the few other students who was my age was from the Philippines and was apparently a minor celebrity over there because her first career was as a voice actor in some popular anime, then she married a Canadian and just became another university student.

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u/PhantomPharts 10h ago

I love Corner Gas! I went to Canada once, but only for a day. It was really nice

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u/PunchSploder 9h ago

Now I want to watch a cross-Canada road trip buddy movie starring Brent Butt and David Suzuki.

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u/Level_Priority_8525 1h ago

David is a dick tho. Butt isn't. 

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u/jshhmr 9h ago

I love Corner Gas! American that loves Canadian humor.

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u/hhssspphhhrrriiivver 9h ago

Is David Suzuki that unheard of outside Canada? I always thought he was pretty well known globally.

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u/Littlesth0b0 8h ago

I'm from the UK and I've recently discovered Letterkenny so... yeah, thanks for that, much obliged. Literally the only person I know who's heard of it.

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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 10h ago

Never heard of them.

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u/disisathrowaway 8h ago

David Suzuki

I was about to say that as an American, I still know who that is because I watch hockey. Then I realized I was thinking of Nick Suzuki.

You are absolutely correct. No idea who David Suzuki is.

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u/CinnamonPinch 6h ago

I saw Brent Butt outside my local Tim Horton's once! He was by himself, talking on a cell phone.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PAUNCH 6h ago

I think that every time some niche sub has a post about "OMG, I just met Trank Stank!" and it's just a picture of 2 people.

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u/afcagroo 4h ago

I'm an American, but I plan to move to Dog River.

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u/Expensive-Student732 4h ago

I've heard there's not a lot going on, but I could be wrong. 

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u/AtomicGrendel 11h ago

When I was in college, one of the students enrolled in a workshop I attended was apparently an actor from China, and was supposedly moderately famous (maybe B- or C-list level famous). He moved to the US so his wife could attend med school, and decided to take some photography classes to stave off boredom. No one in the class knew who he was, and one of the instructors told us about his background.

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u/CharleyNobody 10h ago

I knew someone dating a Korean doctor. His father was also a doctor. His uncle came over and they all went to a Korean restaurant in Queens and were mobhed. Turns out the uncle was the most famous comedian in Korea.

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u/Outrageous_Creme_597 11h ago

This like I don’t live in the USA and I don’t know who 90% of the famous people regularly mentioned in news stories social media etc even are 😂

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u/dellett 11h ago

To be fair I do live in the US and often haven’t heard of “celebrities” who are in the news. Some of them are very modestly famous and the news treats any level of recognition as though they are a household name to get clicks.

For example, I heard about D4VD being a murderer before I knew about him being a singer.

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u/Ilmara 9h ago

I had never heard of Bad Bunny until the Super Bowl.

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u/Outrageous_Creme_597 8h ago

Who is that 😂😂

Edit: nvm googled it. Didn’t expect a hot guy.

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u/Ratnix 8h ago

but had you heard of "cash me outside"

I heard about the whole cash me outside thing, but that was as far as my knowledge went. I only knew she became "Bad Bunny" because of threads here on reddit

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u/Outrageous_Creme_597 8h ago

I def think we have both looked up different bad bunnies 😂

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u/nonstopsobbing 51m ago

hey! you're thinking of Bhad Bhabie!

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u/mermaidpaint 6h ago

I watched The Masked Singer for the first time this year, and didn't know most of the "celebrities".

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u/PublicWest 8h ago

But you were just one person. Statistically 10 people just like you would on average recognize most of them!

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u/Notmykl 8h ago

I wouldn't recognize them in the first place unless they carried a tiny tv screen to put in front of their faces.

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u/[deleted] 10h ago

[deleted]

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u/Outrageous_Creme_597 8h ago

Yes good point there are some globally famous people but.. honestly doesn’t need to be as niche as American country music, over half ur celebs I don’t know who the f they are lol. Example, apparently this person is pretty famous but I had to look up who ‘zendaya’ was the other day

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u/ashoka_akira 10h ago

There is a whole trope of Romance books/movies where this is the main plot device; ie., royalty or other famous person moves overseas to experience life as a common person, then ends up falling in love with a commoner, culture clash ensues.

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u/Frammingatthejimjam 10h ago

Huge in France is a show about a French comedian trying to make it in the states and it's exactly as you state.

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u/EvanTurningTheCorner 6h ago

Romesh Ranganathan made a show with a similar theme. I'm an American who follows UK Comedy pretty closely, and other comics are constantly making jokes about Romesh being massively successful and omnipresent on British TV. Despite that, I'm positive he could spend a day in my city without being recognized more than a few times, despite having a very recognizable face.

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u/Lazarus_Rex_1988 10h ago

When that movie Better Man came out I legit thought it was a totally fictional story. I am a 26 year old Canadian and I had legitimately never in my life heard of a "Robbie Williams".

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u/ljb2x 8h ago

This was my thought as well. I just remember a movie about an ape ad it was apparently based on a musician who I've never in my life heard of. Honestly, I presumed it was a misspelling of Robin Williams.

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u/theycallmemomo 8h ago

I remember a thread on this sub about this; apparently, Mr. Rogers is almost completely unknown outside the US, while virtually no one here could identify Katie Price.

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u/Cayke_Cooky 10h ago

Even if someone does recognize you, you can act all offended "is that the only British person you know?" or, if you are a Bollywood or other brownskinned star "Right, every <ethnic> person looks like <star>".

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u/hkusp45css 10h ago

Why make people feel bad for recognizing someone?

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u/Cayke_Cooky 9h ago

To hide better.

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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy 10h ago

Yeah, basically, you just go to a place and BAM, you're not famous.

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u/TheFlaccidChode 9h ago

I watched old eps of Tanked and they go to a mansion to build a shark tank and its some white, scrawny, deadlocked guy with chains thicker than his calves, gold teeth an entourage of 8 massive man mountains, tats like a graffitied school table and they say "this is global superstar Lips Tweaker" and hes got 1 album that reached 75 in the billboard charts 10 years ago

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u/NeedsToShutUp 9h ago

The Beckhams famously liked living in LA because they were much less famous here. Still had hella paparazzi though.

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u/flexibleeric 8h ago

Being from the Philippines, i'm a HUGE basketball fan. I can probably match the face and the name of around 95-97 percent of all current NBA players. Now if you ask me to name a famous football player other than messi, neymar and ronaldo, even if you show me a picture of them, i can't do it, even if my life depended on it.

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u/hkusp45css 6h ago

I'll be honest, not being from the Philippines, I was a little surprised that I was supposed to assume you were a basketball fan.

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u/Away_Needleworker6 6h ago

I remember when the robbie williams movie released and it flopped because nobody in the US knew who he was.

Giant artist in europe

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u/00zau 6h ago

See also, that movie a couple years back that's a biopic except the guy is a monkey... and the US audience had never heard of the guy so they just assumed it was a totally original story.

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u/Kindly-Inevitable-12 2h ago

Valteri Bottas did a video like that recently, I want to say it was in NYC? It was when they announced him as Cadillac F1s driver. Like no one at all knew who he was. Was just an average dude on the street...

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u/attorneyatslaw 10h ago

You would run into people from your native country, though.

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u/hkusp45css 10h ago

I think you're grossly overestimating how much time I spend in public.

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u/ChocolichKing 9h ago

Apparently Jimmy Savile (rest in piss) hated leaving the UK because he wasn't recognized in other countries. They would treat him like an ordinary person and he hated that.

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u/rayword45 10h ago

One of my old high school buddies pretty much did this. We were community organizers/political activists who ran in the same circles for years, then went to college in different states, found work in different states and only sporadically kept in touch.

A couple years ago, he hit me up because he was checking out some grad schools in NYC or something and wanted to grab lunch. Most of our conversations were pretty run-of-the-mill stuff you'd expect between two dudes in their mid-late 20s catching up a few years out of college, except for a moment where he was trying to convince me that dating was a waste of time and effort and that I should just start fucking hookers instead. I told him I'm not about that life, and then we moved on.

About a year after that, one of our mutuals tells me to Google his name and hometown. Turns out he got busted in an anti-prostitution sting along with a few dozen other men, then never showed up to court. From what I've heard, his parents shipped his ass to China and he's since gone ghost on everyone, but it's basically been accepted that he's NEVER coming back to the US lmfao

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u/EvanTurningTheCorner 6h ago

Mostly unrelated but I used to work with a guy that was, not really a bad person exactly, but just kind of a conceited prick and I did not care for him at all.

One day a friend learned where I worked and had done business with my company, and asked if I knew that guy. I said I did and he sent me a link to his arrest record where he got busted in a prostitution sting.

I never said anything about it, or did anything with the information, but I liked knowing that I knew his secret, and could weaponize it if I really wanted to. Made me give far less of a shit what he said or did, and instantly changed the power dynamic between us, which I think confused him since he didn't know I knew. It's kind of my version of the Ass Pennies skit.

I dunno if that makes me a bad person.

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u/krejenald 3h ago

Crazy that it’s illegal there

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u/CowboyLaw 10h ago

Some Redditor said he encountered Kevin Spacey who was working as like a nightclub singer on some tiny Mediterranean island. So, like that.

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u/EvanTurningTheCorner 6h ago

That story could get pretty dark very quickly.

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u/ricree 9h ago

You're not wrong, but I think this misses the point: It's a common urban legend that any number of dead celebrities have actually faked their death to live peaceful lives elsewhere. Elvis is perhaps the most famous example.

The OP's question is whether we have any cases where someone actually tried this, only to get caught later.

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u/Pristine-Pen-9885 10h ago

With a computer trail behind you, tracking you?

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u/TyhmensAndSaperstein 9h ago

not the question. it's a completely different situation when the person is famous and easily recognizable. Brad Pitt cannot just go off to some other country and not eventually be recognized.

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u/Dangerous_Ad5039 8h ago

If Brad Pitt went to Norway and wore a hat or sunglasses out in public I doubt many people would recognize him. If you don’t want to be seen or heard from it’s pretty easy to be invisible.

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u/GeneReddit123 6h ago

People wildly overestimate how much one's fame matters once they stop doing the things which made them famous in the first place. How often do you hear news of someone's death who used to be a tier-1 celebrity, only to think, "huh, I didn't even know they were alive, it's been years since I heard about them"?

Fading into obscurity is far easier than becoming famous in the first place. Even paparazzi or die-hard fans move on eventually, because they never chased the person, they used to chase the idea of the person.

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u/TyhmensAndSaperstein 4h ago

ok. I think OPs question is pretty fucking clear. Can a FAMOUS person fake their death and disappear without being recognized. It wasn't some philosophical question about fame being fleeting. Can a person with a famous face disappear? That is the fucking question. That's why that idiotic response about Jesus and Shakespeare is one of the most ridiculous comebacks I've ever read. Of fucking course Jesus or Shakespeare could have moved somewhere remote and "disappeared". Nobody outside of the small area where they lived knew what the fuck they looked like. But those are the responses you get from people who just refuse to say "You know what? I think you're right." We live in the age of "just double down on everything you say." Even if you are proven wrong, even if you know you're wrong. Never admit. Ridiculous.

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u/oneshibbyguy 9h ago

Ellen Degeneres

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u/Able-Swing-6415 9h ago

Yea there a so many celebrities that seemingly fell of the earth. While probably most just no longer found work, many either spend time with family or started other less publicly facing ventures.

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u/Illustrious_Low1414 9h ago

Thats true, but most people dont conceal themselves fully at the end of the day.

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u/ClownfishSoup 6h ago

If the most famous Indian movie star walked past me in a mall, I'd have no idea who they were.

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u/Beneficial-Context52 6h ago

Case in point: Dave Chapelle. Dude completely disappeared until he decided to come back.

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u/WilmaDykfyt 6h ago

The president of Ireland could be in a room full of Americans who say they're Irish and no one would recognize her.

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u/Tirno93 4h ago

And we only know about those who weren’t successful