Celebrity5 min(s) read
Anne Hathaway has had to publicly confirm that her pregnancy is real after a conspiracy theory accusing her of wearing a fake belly went viral and dragged one of the internet's most deranged rabbit holes back into the mainstream.
The actress appeared at the premiere of her new film The End of Oak Street in Burbank on Sunday wearing a custom crop top and low-rise jeans that showed her baby bump.
That's because she is expecting her third child.
Within hours, a viral post on X claimed her stomach looked 'off'.
Comments piled in - "Looks like a fake stomach. The belly button looks unreal," one person wrote.
"As someone who has kids, her belly looks like those fake ones they use in movies," said another.
Then it got weirder, and darker.
As the fake belly claims gained traction, a second wave of posts arrived tying Hathaway to the 'Red Shoe Club', a QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theory that has circulated online since around 2020.
The theory alleges that celebrities, royals, and politicians who wear red shoes are signalling membership of a secret elite group involved in child trafficking and worse. Some versions of the conspiracy claim the shoes are literally made from the skin of children.
There is no evidence for any of it.
It sits alongside Pizzagate and other baseless moral panics that have spread through TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and conspiracy podcasts over the past six years.
Hathaway has been loosely linked to the theory by conspiracy accounts before, largely because she has been photographed wearing red shoes at public events and because she once posted a photo of her son's shoes on Instagram that some users decided was a 'coded message'.
The bogus fake pregnancy claims gave the conspiracy new fuel.
The logic - if it can be called that - is that Hathaway is not really pregnant, that the belly is prosthetic, and that the pregnancy is a cover for something connected to the Red Shoe Club.
It is worth stating clearly, once and for all - none of this is real.
She posted a video from the premiere on Instagram with the caption: "Fake hair, real bump."
Four simple words.
She did not engage with the Red Shoe Club theory, and nor should she have to - it's a theory that exists in the minds of some very strange folk on the internet.
She did not address the conspiracy posts directly, just made a joke about her hair and confirmed what should not have needed confirming.
Because of what Hathaway has been through to get here.
Before her first son was born in 2016, she experienced a miscarriage in 2015.
She was starring in the one-woman play Grounded at the time, a role that required her to act out childbirth every night on stage. The actor has spoken publicly about how painful that period was.
When she announced her second pregnancy in 2019, she wrote on Instagram: "For everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love."
She has also spoken recently about how surprised she was to conceive her third child given her age and her history of fertility challenges.
That is the person the internet decided to accuse of faking a pregnancy because her belly button looked 'unreal' in a paparazzi photo.
Hathaway is not the first celebrity to face this.
Beyoncé was accused of wearing a prosthetic belly in 2011 after a video appeared to show her bump folding during a television interview.
She addressed it, confirmed the pregnancy was real, and then gave birth to Blue Ivy Carter.
Other celebrities have also battled similar comments, as well as accusations that they are part of the shadowy 'Red Shoes Club' as well.
Celebrities like Taylor Swift have been accused of being members, as well as figures from the world of politics and beyond.
In reality, it's only ever existed in people's minds online - where quite literally anything seems to be possible.
The fake celebrity pregnancy theory has become a recurring feature of conspiracy culture.
It taps into broader distrust of public figures and the belief that nothing presented by famous people is genuine.
Add the Red Shoe Club layer on top of that and you have a conspiracy that is self-reinforcing - any evidence against it is treated as further proof of how deep the cover-up goes.
Euronews, in its coverage of the story, put it well: it 'further proves that the chronically online really need a hobby'.
Hathaway, for her part, has had a very good 2026.
She starred in The Devil Wears Prada 2, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, the critically acclaimed Mother Mary, and now The End of Oak Street.
She is pregnant with her third child, and responded to a deranged conspiracy theory with four words before moving on with her life.
Time for a few others to do the same, perhaps.
The conspiracy accounts are still posting.
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Anne Hathaway has opened up about the time she suffered a miscarriage while she was starring in an off-Broadway play.
In 2015, the Devil Wears Prada actress was starring in a six-week run of the off-Broadway one-woman show titled Grounded, where she played a female U.S. Air Force who becomes pregnant.
The show, which was written by George Brant, required her to act out a birth scene every night - and it was during this time that Hathaway experienced a miscarriage.
In the following year, the Hollywood star welcomed her first child in March 2016 and announced her second pregnancy in a 2019 Instagram post that highlighted her past struggles with fertility.
Check out the post below:
At the time, Hathaway shared a black and white picture with the caption: "It’s not for a movie...#2. All kidding aside, for everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love."
In a candid interview with Vanity Fair, the Princess Diaries actress explained the story behind the post, sharing: "Given the pain I felt while trying to get pregnant, it would've felt disingenuous to post something all the way happy when I know the story is much more nuanced than that for everyone."
She added she "wasn't going to feel ashamed" of something that seemed "statistically to actually be quite normal".
The One Day actress and her husband Adam Shulman have been married since 2012 and have two sons: Jonathan, seven, and Jack, three.
Hathaway told the publication that she had to deal with her own trauma of a failed pregnancy while channeling the trauma of a character who had just given birth.
"It was too much to keep it in when I was onstage pretending everything was fine. I had to keep it real," she said. "So when it did go well for me, having been on the other side of it - where you have to have the grace to be happy for someone - I wanted to let my sisters know, 'You don’t have to always be graceful. I see you and I’ve been you.'"
"It’s really hard to want something so much and to wonder if you’re doing something wrong," she added.
After suffering her miscarriage, the Interstellar star said she was shocked to discover how common miscarriages are and found out that many of her friends had had similar experiences.
"I thought, where is this information? Why are we feeling so unnecessarily isolated? That's where we take on damage. So I decided that I was going to talk about it," she added.
She said that for years after her Instagram post, women would regularly come up to her in tears, adding: "And I would just hold her, because she was carrying this [pain] around and suddenly it wasn't all hers anymore," she added.
If you or somebody you know is struggling as a result of a miscarriage, you can contact the M + A Hotline on 1-833-246-2632 or visit their website here.
For years now, the world has been obsessed with Emily Ratajkowski. Whatever she is doing, isn't doing, is saying, isn't saying, is wearing, isn't wearing, we are here and we want to know all about it.
This is probably why we were all so intrigued today when she uploaded a mysterious video to social media. Dressed all in a mustard yellow suit, with a black hat and messy hair, Emily is seen in the footage seemingly looking down at her husband as he leans in and kisses her belly. To intrigue us all even more, the In Darkness star drew a love heart on the side.
This video caused many of the fans who had seen her story to go in meltdown mode, with dozens of them taking to different forms of social media to express their suspicions. "So you are pregnant?" asked @efuuu35. They were joined by @mariacasavani who put "Can someone explain her story lol", as well as @edwardscanlan who wrote "I saw the story you posted of your husband kissing your stomach. Are you two expecting? Congratulations if so!"
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In addition, Twitter user @MarkHillaFFC joked on Twitter: "Emily Ratajkowski better not be pregnant.. That was meant to be my job!"
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So, is it true? Could Emily actually be pregnant? Or are we all just reading into things a little too much? What is certainly true is that this is far from the first time that people online have suspected that the model had a bun in the oven.
Back in April, the 26-year-old sent her followers into a frenzy again by taking a photo in an orange tree and captioning it: "Bearing fruit". However, the supermodel soon shot down rumours of a pregnancy at the I Feel Pretty premiere.
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Attending the event in a dress that practically screamed "no baby bump here", Emily strutted down the red carpet looking fabulous. "I wasn't thinking of that when I posted it," Ratajkowski told USA TODAY at the time. "That's really sweet that people were so excited. I'm not pregnant."
Speaking further about her Instagram picture, she added: "I was in a tree holding fruit. Instagram captions are not the easiest thing to come up with. And it seemed like the right one. I was bearing fruit."
The Gone Girl actress tied the knot with husband Sebastian Bear-McClard at New York City's City Hall back in February 2018 after reportedly just a few weeks of dating.
Speaking to Jimmy Fallon, she later revealed how she got engaged to the film producer and actor. "He proposed to me at Minetta Tavern [an upscale restaurant in New York City], and he didn’t have a ring so I was like, 'mmm, nah'," she said. "And then he took the paper clip that the bill was paid with and made me a ring which I actually thought was really romantic."
So, could Emily and Sebastian be expecting? Watch this space.
If I were to say Jessica Simpson was having a rough pregnancy, it would be an understatement.
The singer has suffered through insanely swollen feet, nightmarish insomnia, excessive acid reflux and brutal mom-shaming. But, the ordeal isn't quite over yet, with the star posting her most recent pregnancy battle on social media this week. Luckily though, the latest incident is more funny than tragic.
Jessica took to Instagram yesterday to put out a warning to all pregnant women out there. Specifically: watch how you're sitting on the toilet when you're growing a baby inside of you.
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Posting a hilarious picture of herself holding a broken toilet seat, the 38-year-old wrote: "Warning...Don’t lean back on the toilet when pregnant ??♀️".
Her followers adored the amusing anecdote, with many taking to the comment section to thank her for keeping things real.
"thank you for keeping it honest and real during your pregnancy???? , not a picture perfect Instagram pregnancy ?❤️?? #reallife [sic]," wrote one.
Another added: You're cracking me up!! 36 weeks pregnant here! Can’t say this hasn’t almost happened to me!!" [sic]
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Just a few hours before, the former Newlyweds star had turned to social media to share a less comedic consequence of her pregnancy.
Revealing that she had been suffering from severe pregnancy acid reflux, she uploaded a photo of herself wearing sweatpants and lying on a sleep recliner she had bought to comfort herself.
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Acid reflux occurs when some of the stomach's acidic contents travel up into the esophagus, often causing a burning pain in the chest area. It is common to experience this condition while pregnant and it can result in a burning sensation or pain in the chest, feeling full, heavy or bloated and feeling or being sick.
These two incidents aren't the only unfortunate pregnancy problems Jess had posted about on social media. In January, the mother-of-two took to Instagram to send out a cry for help with her painfully swollen feet.
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Posting a photo of her left foot and ankle looking bigger than any foot or ankle should ever be, the Take My Breath Away songstress wrote: "Any remedies?! Help!!!!"
Fortunately, soon enough, hundreds of fans had flooded the comment section with tips to relieve her pain, with everything from bathing in Epsom salts, to drinking more water, to compression socks being suggested.
Jessica has two children already with her husband Eric Johnson: six-year-old daughter Maxwell Drew Johnson and five-year-old son Ace Knute Johnson.
The third pregnancy was somewhat unexpected, given the fact that only months before, she had told Ellen Degeneres she would not be having another child.
"We got an IUD, nothing’s gonna get in that uterus. I have two beautiful children, and I’m not having a third," the These Boots Are Made For Walking singer said.
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Despite the many issues, the 38-year-old is said to be enjoying the experience, allegedly describing it as "so special".
According to Hollywood Life, a friend of hers said: "Jessica is doing great, she’s really enjoying her pregnancy. She didn’t really plan or expect to be pregnant a third time, so it all feels so special. And one of the best parts about it is that she gets to share the excitement with her kids, they’re old enough to understand and are fully invested.
"She says they ask her almost every day how much longer until the baby arrives. Maxwell is especially excited to be getting a baby sister, she was thrilled when they found out they were having a girl."
Keep on going, Jess. Not long to go until you have a beautiful baby in your arms!
After months of battling rumors that she’s been under the knife, Anne Hathaway has finally revealed the secret behind her new sculpted look.
The Devil Wears Prada star, 43, uploaded an Instagram video exposing her sneaky secret to lifted eyes and sharp cheekbones.
In the video, she demonstrated how her hairstylist, Orlando Pita, styles her hair to make it look as though she has had a facelift.
Pita braids two small plaits close to her temples and pulls them back, away from her face, giving the whole eye area a noticeable lift.
Shortly after posting the video, rumors that Hathaway had had an invasive cosmetic procedure began circulating on social media.
The Hollywood sweetheart explained in a recent interview with ELLE Magazine that she found the rumors “distracting”.
She told the reporter, “I wouldn't say pointed. But we're at a time when people feel very confident in assuming what they think is fact, and sometimes what they think is accurate and sometimes it's not.
“My preference would be to never comment on anything and to just live in the mystery and not draw attention to myself, but the speculation has gotten so loud that you do feel the need to just get your truth out there.
“And I'll probably always wonder, 'Should I have posted that or not?’ Should I have just kept going and done the thing that makes me happy and makes me feel more confident on the red carpet?
“But I felt like the conversation was becoming distracting.”
Discussing the likelihood of the star having a facelift in the future, Hathaway noted that it is a “huge medical decision”.
However, she did not rule out ever having the procedure. She said,” By the way, these are huge medical decisions that people are presuming. I wanted to show that like, 'No, I didn't make a huge medical decision. It's just two braids.
“And by the way, the other thing about all this is, I might still get a facelift someday.”
The conversation was likely sparked by her incredible appearance in the long-awaited sequel The Devil Wears Prada 2, in which she looks like she has barely aged since the first film came out over 20 years ago.
Reflecting on the time she spent as journalist Andy Sachs, Hathaway said, “You know how you'll have certain memories or times in your life that you wish you could revisit because you're like, 'God, I wish I could go back there and be the person that I am now and know what I know now.
“That's what it was like.
“I've always felt this enormous debt of gratitude to the movie and how I was protected, especially by [director] David Frankel.
“So it was exciting to get to go back and say thank you, and show all the work that I've done on myself and just aim to be an absolute delight every day.”
