From flat-Earthers to moon-landing denial, conspiracy theories have never been limited to fringe corners of the internet. These days, even household names seem perfectly comfortable slipping on a tinfoil hat in their downtime.
Most recently, Kim Kardashian admitted she doesn’t believe the moon landing actually happened — a claim she backed up with an alleged Buzz Aldrin quote. Predictably, the backlash came fast, with NASA itself chiming in (more on that later).
And it made me wonder about all the other celebrities who’ve wandered into conspiracy territory. From B.o.B. getting into an actual rap beef with Neil deGrasse Tyson over flat-earth theories to Roseanne Barr amplifying QAnon talking points, plenty of famous faces have used their platforms to push some truly questionable ideas — many of which have been publicly debunked.
So, here are 16 celebrities who openly shared their wildest conspiracy theories…and left the rest of us speechless.
1.
Most recently, Kim Kardashian said that the 1969 moon landing “didn’t happen” during a recent episode of The Kardashians, where she’s speaking to Sarah Paulson. Kim explained that she read a quote from Buzz Aldrin about the scariest moment of his journey to the moon. “This girl says, ‘What was the scariest moment?’ And he says, ‘There was no scary moment because it didn’t happen. It could’ve been scary, but it wasn’t because it didn’t happen,” Kim said. Elsewhere, she said that the Apollo 11 mission was “fake” and that there are “a few videos on Buzz Aldrin talking about how it didn’t happen.”
2.
Despite an overwhelming amount of information suggesting otherwise, Kyrie Irving jumped off the porch in 2017 when he claimed to be a flat-earther (spoiler alert: he won’t be the only one on this list). He later apologized after the conversation sparked uproar, though he admitted that he enjoyed hearing people from both sides debate.
3.
For “Airplanes” rapper B.o.B., the flat-earth conversation resulted in a rap battle against…Neil DeGrasse Tyson. B.o.B. went on a spree on X, formerly known as Twitter, explaining why he believes the Earth is flat and why he feels NASA hasn’t been truthful about the world’s edge. Tyson eventually responded back on X before B.o.B. took their beef to wax on a song called “Flatline,” where he called Tyson out by name. In response, Tyson dropped a song called “Flat To Fact,” written and recorded by his nephew Stephen Tyson.
4.
Ye (fka Kanye West) has made some egregious claims over the years, but one of the most insensitive and downright evil conspiracies he’s pushed was that Derek Chauvin didn’t actually kill George Floyd. During a controversial episode of the Drink Champs podcast, Ye spoke about Candace Owens’s documentary on BLM and said that the former police officer’s “knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.” He also said that “they hit [George Floyd] with the fentanyl.”
5.
Terrence Howard publicly rejected basic arithmetic in favor of his own system of math that he calls “Terryology.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, Howard explained how he believes 1×1=2. “If one times one equals one, that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what’s the square root of two? Should be one, but we’re told it’s two, and that cannot be,” he told the publication in 2015 about an argument he had with a professor when he studied chemical engineering at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He said he left school shortly after. “I mean, you can’t conform when you know innately that something is wrong.”
6.
Jaden Smith has pushed some very odd theories throughout his life. In one instance, he told HuffPost that he believed there was a real-life Wakanda where the technology was light-years ahead of anything we’re aware of. “I will keep it real broad and simple, real broad and simple. The technology that we’re currently at is not the maximum of the human capability,” he said, “and that there are places in the world where their technology supersedes what we see here on a daily basis. It’s made by humans, and it should be acknowledged, and it should be looked at because it could heal a lot of problems.”
7.
We could have a whole standalone list of conspiracy theories President Donald Trump has pushed, but recently, he claimed that the use of Tylenol in pregnant women is linked to autism.
8.
Another member of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, Kylie Jenner, also pushed a few conspiracy theories in her time. A decade ago, she brought back a fan-favorite from the ’90s: chemtrails. In a 2015 tweet, she shared an image that posed a series of questions about chemtrails, which Vox describes as “thin clouds that form after a reaction between temperature changes and water in the atmosphere when jet aircraft fly around.” But Kylie’s post suggested that the government was spraying chemicals into the sky, and it was having a negative effect on our health.
9.
Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine was certainly at the forefront of right-wing conspiracy theories before the Trump administration normalized them. In 2012, the musician claimed that the Obama administration staged shootings to push their gun ban laws. “[Obama]’s trying to pass a gun ban, so he’s staging all of these murders, like the Fast And Furious thing down at the border; [the massacre in] Aurora, Colorado, all the people that were killed there; and now the beautiful people at the Sikh temple,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter.
10.
Rosie O’Donnell found herself in controversy over the years as someone who has been labeled a “9/11 truther.” She’s openly stated that she doesn’t believe the official story of the tragic incident.
11.
This list wouldn’t be complete without including a few COVID-19-related conspiracy theories. In 2021, Nicki Minaj shared an anecdote about her cousin’s friends that made her hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine without further research. “My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied,” she tweeted.
12.
Ted Nugent has been at the forefront of climate change denial, and has even gone as far as claiming it’s a “scam.” “You have to have sh*t for brains to believe this global warming bullsh*t,” Nugent said on his Spirit Campfire podcast. “If you believe it, you have sh** for brains. While you were sleeping, someone opened your skull and took a dump inside your skull.” In that same episode, he said that people “have to be mentally ill to believe in electric vehicles.”
13.
Roseanne Barr boldly embraced QAnon conspiracy theories in 2018. “President Trump has freed so many children held in bondage to pimps all over this world. Hundreds each month. He has broken up trafficking rings in high places everywhere. notice that. I disagree on some things, but give him benefit of doubt-4 now,” she said in a now-deleted tweet.”
14.
Elon Musk has used X to push a number of conspiracy theories since buying the platform. In 2023, Musk co-signed a post on X that read, “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.” In response, Musk wrote, “You have said the actual truth.”
15.
Hercules star Kevin Sorbo was among those who appeared to be in denial about those who stormed the Capitol on January 6. When someone posted a photo of some of the people who swarmed the Capitol with the caption, “Do these look like Trump supporters? Or Leftist agitators disguised as Trump supporters…” Sorbo, a staunch Trump supporter, wrote in response, “They don’t look like patriots to me…”