Rumors are a tricky thing. Once they get going, they can be very hard to control. Just like a game of Broken Telephone, even if there is a semblance of truth at the beginning it’s completely distorted by being passed around.
Here are some of the wildest rumors that Redditors had shared about them that are farthest from the truth.
Sources at the end of the article, Comments edited for clarity.
I started work in a kitchen and every time I would walk in, someone would turn off the ceiling fan and everyone would be suspiciously quiet with their pots and pans. It turns out the boss convinced them that I was some super secret soldier friend of his who has come back with shell shock. Ceiling fans reminded me of choppers and loud noises will send me into a rage. It was hilarious, because I’m the most laid back passive dude ever.
c_alas
When I was in high school I made out with a girl who knew one of my best friends. I found out a few days later, from my friend, that the girl was telling people we had slept together, and that I was apparently really good.
skunkwaffle
That I wore bicycle helmets when I drove my car.
BlurryFacePilot
That I was dead.
I was on “The Corridor Committee” at school, drawing up a code of conduct at the end of my 4th Year and the new rules were to be announced the following school year.
But then I had to change schools at very short notice over the summer holidays and only told my socially isolated circle of friends.
So the new school year starts and everyone gets the Start-of-Year assembly where they’re told “Welcome back!” and to “Work hard…” etc. Then they were introduced to the new Corridor Code.
The head teacher reads off the code and says “Special thanks to [list of people involved] and [my name], who sadly is no longer with us.
And that’s how my death was accidentally announced to the entire school.
Raddigan
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I joined my wife’s workplace about 12 months after she joined. When we worked together (same department, same roles), we’d keep mostly away from each other so as not to crowd each other. When we’d take breaks, we’d be hanging out together. You know, normal stuff.
Thing is, no one picked up on the fact that we were husband and wife. They knew she was married and that I was married – but not to each other.
Someone saw us holding hands on the walk back to our car after work, someone else saw us kiss when I dropped her in to work when I had the day off, and rumours started flying around that we were cheating on our significant others.
People took it upon themselves to ‘intervene’ and approached me to tell me she was married and that I should be ashamed of myself. Someone else made a comment to her that she should be more discreet if she was going to continue on her relationship with me.
Truth be told, we both found it pretty funny. We didn’t get a chance to run with it though because we were so taken aback by it when it was brought up to us individually, that we just blurted out the truth on the spot.
Sofa_King_Cliche
I had a major operation on my right eye, (detached retina) in 8th grade. I was out for almost 2 months recovering. Someone decided to tell a bunch of fellow students that I got a hot Cheeto stuck in the back of my eye. I didn’t even know how to respond to all those Myspace messages.
iwishiwassober
I used to work in a school, and there was a rumour that went around that over the summer, I left to go and fight The Undertaker.
Never put those kids right on that one.
THE_LOUDEST_PEN
When I was in highschool I burnt my wrist while taking a pizza out of the oven, so had to wear a bandage for a few days for it to heal. Some girl that was in my french class told people that I tried to kill myself.
She also asked me “DID YOU COMMIT SUICIDE?!?!” at one point. Yes, I committed suicide and I’m dead now. That’s why I’m sitting here
resnacka
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Aged 22, I was in prison, and had recently been transferred to a new facility. One of my old friends was there, let’s call him Joe, and upon greeting one another he walked me around the yard to introduce me to everyone. This is a pretty normal “This guy’s with me” sort of courtesy which typically allows you to bypass the usual “working out where you fit into the pecking order” fights.
So, Joe’s walking me around and last of all we head over to this table where some of the older guys were playing cards. Because this was our last stop, I understood that these were the most senior / serious people. He introduces me to each of them and then goes “…and boys, this is (my name), he’s a hitman.”
Now, he was joking, and usually nobody would ever take a line like that seriously. However, there was a sort of confluence of circumstances. The first thing was that half the guys at the table were killers. So it’s not too far off possible. The second thing was that my mate Joe who’d been walking me around is a serious gangster, and everyone knows it. So it was plausible that he would know hitmen. The third thing was that obviously he and I knew each other from way back, and nobody else knew how. The fourth thing was that I got angry at him for saying this and told him off.
See, I realised “these guys are scary, I don’t want them thinking anything like that and I don’t want them thinking I’m even claiming it” but I didn’t think “Hey, I should be careful what I say to Joe” because I knew him so well. To me, he was just my mate Joe.
To everyone else, though, Joe is pretty impressive and so when the new guy (me) tells him off, then they kind of think “Whoa, it’s about to go down…” because you don’t talk to Joe like that. When Joe apologised instead of attacking me, they figured I must be a real hitman and that therefore Joe had been telling the truth.
I was wearing that rep for the next few months. Awkward.
h8speech
A few years ago I volunteered in a desolate little village way up in the northwest corner of Georgia: The Country. Then, as now, I was a brown-haired, blue-eyed, ginger-bearded, translucent-skinned Irish American.
After six months of teaching, I left the village for a week or two of summer vacation. By the time I’d returned, a rumor had spread among the villagers that I was actually black.
“Dato told me that you are black.”
“Okay. Well, who told Dato that?”
“He just said he heard it around.”
“Alright. But look at me — how am I black?”
“I don’t know.”
“…”
“They say that you are black but you are lying about it.”
“…”
CarlPeligro
After just 2 days of 8th grade, I had E. Coli that landed me in ICU for 6 weeks.
The rumors spread like crazy about what happened. Some said I was I was poisoned, others thought I had stomach cancer. At the varsity football game, the announcer asked for prayers as he told everyone I wasn’t expected to make it through the night.
No doubt, I was really sick. But my favorite was that I was airlifted to Florida to have a stomach transplant. Since no human stomachs were available, it was a cow’s stomach that would be transplanted.
DesignFlaw06
“He mows the lawn naked.”
Um, gym shorts and a tank top is not naked.
BoofahKingWho
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My mum had a seizure when I was at dinner with her after school. Her first ever, it was very traumatizing etc.
Anyway, I went to a Catholic school, so in the morning, they made an announcement about remembering my mum in their prayers (this was standard policy when family members of students were sick, injured or died.)
Somehow, a couple of girls interpreted this as my mum had died. They were really shocked that I was in school at all. So first I had to clear that up.
Then, some freshman girls decided that the actual truth was that I had killed my mother. They told a teacher they didn’t feel comfortable around a murderer. The teacher laughed them away and told me about it later in the day.
So craziest rumor I heard about myself was that the freshmen thought I had killed my mum.
SalemScout
A rumor spread that I had died in a car wreck. This happened while I was visible and in school. I would show up to classes and people would jump with joy realizing that it had been a lie.
My friends were the worst.
FREEBA
In middle school this one girl had a birthday party on a boat and invited pretty much every girl. I wasn’t invited but I didn’t care since we didn’t know each other. Some girls who didn’t like me decided to invent the rumor that I was having a birthday party on my yacht the same day as the other girl had hers.
I still don’t quite understand the reason for this rumor. My birthday wasn’t anytime soon, I certainly didn’t own a yacht…all they did was make me sound rich.
WooopsieDaisy
I missed my 5th High School reunion because I was in India for a few weeks visiting my mother. By the 10th reunion, the rumor had spread that I was a Hindu monk living in a grass hut, wearing a loin cloth.
brotherjonathan
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When I was 17 I had a seizure at work, which was a Saturday job in a small town pharmacy.
It was nearly the end of the day and there weren’t enough other staff members for the shop to legally be open, so they shooed out the few customers and closed early. The following Saturday it felt like every other customer was telling me about ‘that poor girl who died here last week’, with one little old lady swearing up and down that she’d watched the paramedics wheel out the corpse. She was very disappointed when I told her that I was still very much alive, and that the paramedics didn’t even get called.
The pharmacist was like ‘oh yeah, I forgot to mention that people thought you died’ – thanks for the heads up!
Smantie
That I wanted to learn Russian because I’ve got a step-sister in Russia which my father abandoned when she was a kid.
I just really love the language, what’s the fuss about komrades?
BaudelairesFlower
That I was the leader of a satanic coven (yes, really…).
One of my friends lost someone close to her, and a bunch of us were trying to comfort her, while sitting in a circle, holding hands…
A_Gaggle_of_Nuns
Someone started a rumor that me and my friend were gay, and when there was a Instagram video of us LIGHTLY punching each other, the PTA had to ask if we were in an abusive relationship.
It was very weird to explain that we were not in fact gay, and they didn’t believe us until we said it like twice. They kept saying, “You don’t have to hide it” and we were like what?
CadeTheHuman
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“He’s a senior” I was a freshman.
gummybear0068
I went to the nurse’s office in 4th grade for a sore throat and my best friend convinced my class I swallowed a frog.
Anonymous
I have a side of the family we do not associate with because they’re genuinely just not good people. I spent lots of time in the gym stayed trimmed and muscular. All the while my estranged aunts and grandmother were telling anyone who would listen that I was on crystal meth.
Granted anyone who saw me in person would dismiss it immediately. It was still frustrating to explain.
MrSuperDooper
My physics teacher got me pregnant three times in six months’ time.
lydocia