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From Sandra Bullock to Mila Kunis, these stars have owned up to not being truthful about when they were born.
Age may be just a number, but when you’re a celebrity, it can be make or break when it comes to landing a job. It’s no secret that there’s an ageism problem in Hollywood, making it difficult for people to get cast in projects when they hit a certain age. In order to combat the problem, some celebs have decided to straight-up lie about when they were born.
Other stars, meanwhile, have lied about their age, and claimed they were actually older to help them in their career or personal lives. While many A-listers have had to come clean about their true age, others were able to keep it a mystery for quite a while.
Find out which stars have been accused or have admitted to lying about their age…
1. Rebel Wilson
Rebel Wilson infamously found herself in the middle of a controversy surrounding her age back in 2018. While fans believed she was 28 at the time, a former classmate shared photos from their yearbook which revealed she was 35. After the pics were published in Australia's Woman’s Day magazine and they called her a liar, she denied the claims -- and then ended up suing the mag for defamation. She also explained that she had not been deliberately lying about her age.
“I think when I did go to America, I kind of just stopped saying my age...But the reality is when you work in America, you have to show your passport and your visa for every single job, so it's not like you can hide how old you were. So for the press to do a story that I was deliberately lying or whatever, no. I was just being a lady and not telling my age when I moved to America. That's not really a crime. Also, most actresses do that,” she said on Home Delivery.
2. Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis wouldn’t have gotten her big break in Hollywood if she hadn’t lied about her age. Back when she auditioned for That 70’s Show, she was just 14 -- but producers were looking for someone a little bit older. In order to be considered for the role, she figured out a loophole so she didn't have to tell them her age.
“Legally, I was 14. I mean -- I told them that I was a little bit older…I was in ninth grade, so I was pretty 14. I told them I was gonna be 18, which…is not technically a lie, ’cause at one point, given all things went right, I was gonna be 18,” Mila said on The Tonight Show.
3. Laverne Cox
For many years, Laverne Cox got away with not telling anyone her real age. She says that when she was 28, she was dating a younger man who told her she was “too old.” She decided to start saying she was 22 -- and kept up with that for years. When she didn’t want to lie about being 22 anymore, she decided to say she was “over 21.”
“And so I was ‘over 21’ from like 2002 to 2019,” she said on The Ellen Show. “Then IMDb found out my real age, so it started appearing places, and it was freaking me out. I was having such anxiety, and so I started talking to my therapist about it. I started unpacking all the stories I had about being older. The stories were like, I wasn’t hirable, I wasn’t datable, I wasn’t F-able...and then I worked through all that.”
4. Hilary Duff
Hilary Duff admits she used to lie about her age all the time -- but she didn’t do it publicly. She says that when she was still underage, she would lie in order to get into nightclubs, even though she was pretty sure that the bouncers knew her actual age.
“I think they would all know how old I was anyway. I was pretty well-known by the time I was trying to get into clubs, and they would just let me in anyway,” Hilary told Time.
5. Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock has owned up to lying about her age over the years. In fact, she joked that she did it so much she actually didn’t know her actual age. While she initially never wanted to lie, she explained that the times she has told the truth, it has worked against her.
“After a while, you really have no idea how old you are because you've lied so many times. I always said I would never lie, but one time when I didn't, it worked against me. So I figure you just keep them guessing,” Sandra reportedly once said.
6. Alexa Demie
Alexa Demie’s age has been a mystery for quite a number of years. While playing a high school student on Euphoria, she claimed to be “almost 25” in 2019. But when fans did a deep dive into her career, they discovered a 2010 blog post about her sunglasses line that referred to her as a “19-year-old designer.” Then, in a TikTok in 2022, an old classmate said she believed Alexa to be in her early 30s. Alexa has never commented on the age discrepancy.
7. James Blunt
James Blunt has been lying about his age for years and he seems to get a big kick out of it. Even right before he was about to turn 40, he was caught telling interviewers that he actually was only in his early 30s. Then in 2023, he admitted that he had been changing his age on his Wikipedia page.
“If you look at my Wikipedia page, it will say that I'm 47 -- I'm actually 49. That's because I changed the entry,” he jokingly told The Guardian -- although his age has since been corrected.
8. Nelly
Back in the early 2000s, Nelly got caught stretching the truth about his age. While fans believed him to be under 25, it was revealed that wasn’t the case when he was nominated by Teen People as one of the Hottest Stars Under 25. It turns out that at the time, he was actually 28.
9. Whoopi Goldberg
Early in her career, Whoopi Goldberg says she had to lie about her age in order to get work. And while most people pretend to be young, Whoopi actually had to say she was older. During a 1986 interview with The Washington Post, Whoopi revealed the truth and shared that she was actually 30, not 35, at the time.
“I had to lie about my age to get some jobs,” she explained in the article.
10. Laurence Fishburne
Back when Laurence Fishburne was just an aspiring actor, he says he had to lie about his age to get his role in Apocalypse Now. He told the casting crew he was 16 but he was actually just 14. When he was recognized by a producer, who knew he was younger, he almost didn’t get the role. It all came down to a secretary who thought he could pass as older.
“A young woman who was working in the offices, a secretary, got up and walked through. And as she was walking, Francis [Ford Coppola] finally spoke up, and he just looked at her and said, ‘Excuse me, you think this kid could be 18?’ And whoever this young woman was, she turned around, looked at me, and went, ‘Yeah,’” he shared on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.
11. Nadine Coyle
When Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle was still a teenager, she lied about her age in order to participate in the show Popstars. Unfortunately, during an interview, she slipped up and revealed her true birthday, revealing that she was 16 and not 18. Despite trying to convince producers of her age and even contacting her parents to get ahold of her passport, she eventually told the truth.
She ended up getting sent home since she wasn’t old enough for the show but was later invited to return for Popstars: The Rivals, where she was matched up with her Girls Aloud bandmates.
12. Sinéad O'Carroll
B*Witched band member Sinéad O'Carroll says she was forced to lie about her age for much of her time in the band. She explained that since she was about seven years older than the other girls in the group, management told her to say she was the same age.
“The girls were 17 and I was about 24 so I had to lie about my age,” she said on The Six O'Clock Show. "Our management wanted me to lie about my age so I had to discard so many things that I did with my life in interviews."
