Bizarre Conspiracy Theories Of How These Celebs Had Real-Life Clones

Celebrities are, generally speaking, kind of a mercurial bunch. Sure, many of them seem to have their heads on reasonably straight most of the time, but many others are prone to the kind of behavior — nightclub fistfights, weird remarks to the press, shaving a bald stripe down the center of their heads — that invite speculation as to whether they are from the same planet as the rest of us. As odd as some can be, though, some of their fans can be much, much more so.

For example, a ridiculous number of said fans have become convinced of a weirdly specific conspiracy theory about their favorite famous people: that they have died and been secretly replaced by clones. Many of these people seem to have come up with this notion independently of each other, but fuel has been added to the fire by a man known as Donald Marshall, who claims to have been (wait for it) born inside a secret celebrity clone farm run by the nefarious Illuminati, where he was forced to write hit songs for the clones of pop artists (via Gizmodo). Keep that in mind as you try to ignore the fact that the idea of cloning a full-grown replica from an original specimen is wildly unscientific; in fact, just take off your critical thinking cap altogether, and settle in for the nuttiest celebrity clone theories the internet has to offer.

As two of the world's most famous people, Beyoncé Knowles and her husband Jay-Z have been at the center of just a ton of loony conspiracy theories. Queen Bey has, almost certainly unintentionally, helped to propagate said theories by including tons of religious and occult symbolism in her videos, which of course must mean that she's ... we don't know, maybe an Illuminati high priestess bent on world domination (via Rolling Stone). But, as reported by U.K. radio station Capital FM, those theories aren't even the most crackers of the bunch. You see, many of Knowles' fans are convinced that the real Beyoncé died in 2000, and was replaced by one of those clones fresh from the cloning farm.

As the "theory" goes, those insidious behind-the-scenes rulers at the Illuminati got heir hands on some of Knowles' stem cells in the '90s, and after her death at the turn of the millenium, they produced a brand-new Beyoncé who looks slightly different from the old one and who would help brainwash the public through the power of elaborate dance routines, but who let her clonedom slip by acting kind of weird at a basketball game once. For proof, just check out this YouTube video, or this one, or ... you know what, we don't have all day here. Please note that the "they look a bit different than they did in their twenties" argument is a popular one among proponents of clone theories (proclonents?), because this isn't the last time you'll be hearing it.

We all know Avril Lavigne; she's a punky kind of pop singer, and a girl, as if that could be any more obvious. But what may not be so obvious, except to the intrepid conspiracy theorists of the internet, is that the Avril of today is not the Avril of "SK8R Boi" and "Complicated" and the dog days of MTV. You see, it seems that Lavigne sadly passed away in 2003, to be replaced publicly in 2005 by a clone who may or not be named Melissa for some reason (via The Guardian).

This is one of the OG clone theories, having been floating around the nether-regions of the internet since the mid-aughts, when a Brazilian fan page began noticing ominous undertones in lyrics like "The day you slipped away was the day I found it won't be the same" (like, how else could that possibly be interpreted?), and the fact that she began favoring different kinds of clothes, and maybe once appeared in public with the word "Melissa" written (not tattooed, written) on her hand. Theories vary as to whether the new Avril is actually a clone or just a really convincing body double, but we have a theory of our own: Lavigne grew up, began dressing a little differently, and enjoys screwing with people. We know, that seems pretty outrageous. It's probably the clone thing.

Okay, if there's one person you just knew wouldn't be safe from the clone theory, it would have to be Marshall Mathers, the formerly controversial attention hog of a rapper known as Eminem. This is one of the newer iterations of the theory, and it states that the Real Slim Shady tragically perished in a 2006 car accident, only to be replaced by the Fake Slim Shady, who has graced us with his increasingly aggro, one-note-but-still-ridiculously-complex rhymes ever since. There's a twist, however: For some reason, Fake Slim is alleged to be not just a clone, but a lifelike android, because those totally exist. (Source: "Star Trek" and the "Alien" movies.)

According to website Pop Crush, the theory was detailed on a Spanish website called La Guía Del Varón, which curated a choice selection of "evidence" bandied about by fans on Twitter — which include such damning items as Em forgetting details of a long-ago music video, the fact that he has grown a beard, his "dead" eyes, and slight changes to the shape of his jaw and his hairline. Of course, the video in question was shot with Snoop Dogg (which could explain Em's hazy memory), and while Em understandably does not look the same as he did 20 years ago, he has insisted on sporting the same deadpan facial expression in virtually every photo ever taken of him. If old Slim really is an android, though, we have two questions: Who made him, and why didn't they make another George Carlin instead?

Okay, so perhaps Eminem is just the second-most likely celebrity to have drawn the attention of the Clone Crew. As you may have noticed, "acting weird in public" is often cited as sterling proof of clonedom; never mind that if you had been world-famous since a young age and were subject to scrutiny by the international press over your every public outing, you might also have a "glitch" from time to time. Miley Cyrus has been just that level of famous since she was a tween, sticks her tongue out all the time for no reason, and acts goofy in front of cameras on a near-constant basis, so it may not be surprising to learn that the "died and was cloned" conspiracy theories surrounding her have been frequent and numerous.

As reported by The Baltimore Sun, Cyrus was first the subject of a death hoax in 2008, when her YouTube account was hacked and subsequently reported that she had been killed by a drunk driver. Then, according to Dazed, new hoaxes began popping up on Reddit: Cyrus had been murdered at the behest of Disney in 2010, or died of an accidental overdose in 2012. Once again, her changing facial structure was the most commonly cited evidence for her cloning — but to be honest, we'd be more convinced she was a clone if she still looked like Hannah Montana after all this time.

As one of the richest men in the world, it's not terribly surprising that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has also been the subject of a conspiracy theory or two. In 2020, a blog by the questionable name of AIM Truth Bits claimed to have made an astounding discovery on Ancestry.com: that Bill and his then-wife, Melinda, were listed as deceased as of 2013. Rightfully, nobody seemed to pay much attention, but according to Reuters, the allegation popped up again via a since-deleted 2021 Instagram post. Since the Gateses had made about a thousand public appearances in the intervening years, the internet's conspiracy hounds could come up with only one reasonable explanation, and you can probably guess what it was.

Of course, it's probably stating the obvious to say that the Ancestry page (which you can still dig up online) is probably what we here at Grunge call "mega-fake," but that didn't stop the lovely folks at QAnon from jumping all over the theory, and then adding their own special brand of loony twists (via The Independent). The looniest of them all came courtesy of one QAnon researcher who revealed the group's "take" on Twitter: "Bill and Melinda Gates [are] splitting up ... either [because] she's already been replaced by a male clone, it's a strategy to protect his money after he's arrested, or she's leaving him for Fauci." Sounds perfectly sane to us.

If you're familiar with Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, then you probably know that it wasn't exactly a church, that they didn't actually believe in Satan, and that LaVey (who died in 1997) was by his own admission one of the biggest liars he himself could think of. After his death, his daughter Zeena LaVey (known these days, according to her website, as Zeena Schreck or simply Zeena) briefly ascended to the head of the organization, after which she became a visual artist and basically faded into obscurity. Except, that is, in certain corners of the internet — because it turns out that Schreck bears an uncanny resemblance to superstar songstress Taylor Swift, and you can probably parse out where we're going with this.

According to NME, a theory was put forth in a series of since-deleted Instagram posts and YouTube videos that Swift is actually a clone of Schreck. To what end would Schreck agree to be cloned to produce a relationship-challenged although unquestionably talented pop star? A good question, but NME quotes one of those old Insta posts to give us the answer: "The Illuminati is known for [cloning people]. They clone successful and influential people that will continue to carry out their sinister agenda for mankind." That's weird — we have friends who majored in Sinister Agendas in college, and they never said anything about cloning. Maybe they saved all of that for Instagram. Anyhoo, this theory is a bit of an outlier among the rest, because Zeena is still alive and well; she has yet to comment on whether Swift is indeed her clone, but we heard she may have sang "Bad Blood" at karaoke once.

Oh, Britney Spears. As you may know if you pay attention to any kind of media, even a little, she has had a rough road from former Mouseketeer (via E! News) to blazingly famous pop star to cautionary tale to recent escapee from a highly questionable conservatorship established by her father, and like that one poor kid from that one viral video way, way back, we kind of wish everyone would just leave her alone already. But conspiracy-heads never rest, and as reported by Perth Now, they have long been convinced that it wasn't Spears who had that highly publicized breakdown in 2008 — it was her extremely glitch-prone clone.

The "proof" arrived in the form of a 2018 blog post on Babe.net, which asserted that Spears was cloned in 2004 while working on a mystery album (which never surfaced). As she began to exhibit more rebelliousness toward her record label, the decision was made to replace her with the clone (named "Myah Marie" for some reason). That mystery album, which purportedly featured lyrics about her cloning, was shelved; "Myah" took over, and has been Britney ever since. More evidence came in the form of Spears' video for "Break the Ice," which features a futuristic set-up which that scamp Donald Marshall claims looks "exactly" like those nefarious cloning centers. Why "Myah's" label would allow this to happen, nobody can really say. As for Britney, she inadvertently helped fuel the theories by posting Instagram pictures of herself in which she looked just so different from the way fans are used to seeing her... that is, without makeup.

Here we have the single most egregious example of the "she looks different, so she must be a clone" fallacy: Megan Fox, whose look throughout the years has famously changed more often than David Bowie in the '70s. (Let's get this straight, though: David Bowie was not a clone, he was an alien. A Starman, if you will. Big difference.) While Fox has never publicly commented on whether she has had plastic surgery (because, frankly, it's nobody's business), that hasn't stopped outlets like Life & Style and In Touch Weekly (via Buzzfeed) from publicly speculating about it, and there's no denying that the changes in her appearance can be dramatic.

This, of course, can be chalked up to things like fluctuations in weight and having really talented, expensive makeup artists at your disposal. But certain internet videos, like one posted to DailyMotion under the title "Illuminati Clones – Was Megan Fox Replaced?" use side-by-side comparisons of Fox under different lighting, wearing different makeup, and at different time periods to leave the viewer with no other conclusion than that yes, Megan Fox has obviously been replaced by an Illuminati clone.

Of all the people the Illuminati would want to clone, the goofy, genial veteran weatherman Al Roker doesn't jump immediately to mind. But Phony Roker gave himself away during one Today Show broadcast in 2012; as his co-hosts went on about the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, Roker looked dead into camera with an odd, frozen half-smile on his face, and held that pose in freeze-frame-like fashion for a full 17 seconds.

A clip of the segment went viral, and according to online founts of sketchy "information" like Before It's News, it constituted evidence that Roker-the-clone had "glitched out" during a live television broadcast for all to see. It was a pretty odd incident, but when asked to explain himself during a subsequent broadcast, Roker had a solid reason for it: He is a goofball, and he was goofing around (via Today). "Our director was egging me on," Roker explained, "and I was just like, 'How long can I hold this pose?'" Seventeen seconds, as it turned out. Roker apparently later became aware of the whole clone theory and has been known to have fun with it in the intervening years. In 2018, a fan on Twitter, impressed by Roker's dedication to his profession and ability to balance it with being a family man along with participating in a ton of charitable endeavors (via Look to the Stars), posed the question, "Do you ever sleep?" Roker's deadpan reply: "I'm a clone."

The rapper and photography enthusiast known as Kodak Black got himself into some legal hot water in 2019, when he was slapped with a 46-month prison sentence for falsifying information on federal forms to buy guns (via Rolling Stone). This sentence was ultimately commuted in 2021 by then-President Trump (no, really), but when photos first emerged of Kodak in the clink, fans observed that he looked a bit different — more jacked, for one thing, and with differences apparent in his hair and skin tone. Prison will have those kinds of effects, but many of Kodak's fans on the internet parsed out the ominous truth.

"Kodak Black dead [and] been replaced with a clone. Joining the ranks [with] Avril Lavigne," read one tweet; "FREE THE REAL KODAK Y'ALL CAN KEEP THAT CLONE," read another. As reported by XXL, another since-deleted tweet won them all: "That's not Kodak Black ... that's Polaroid Brown." Proponents of the "Kodak Is a Clone" theory are convinced he was replaced with his ill-gotten offspring while in prison, which honestly seems like a pretty crappy way for a clone to begin its public life. As Complex later noted, Kodak himself weighed in on social media after his release, saying ... okay, well, every other word cannot be printed here, so suffice to say he wasn't happy. Of course, that may have just been the corrupted DNA in his cloned cells talking.