The 40 Best Celebrity Rumors Ever

A massive compendium of scandal.

The golden age of celebrity rumors may be coming to an end. As Britney Spears spreads her legs to the world and Nicole Richie gets arrested driving north in the southbound lane, truth may at last have outstripped semi-fiction. Today's celebrities have so little left to hide. But fear not, scandal-mongers! The past remains a bottomless well of salacity. In tribute, we present our picks for the forty best celebrity rumors ever. Dive in. But be careful. This stuff doesn't wash off. — Peter Smith

40. Kiddie idols meet grisly end

Did you hear that Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez (Zack and Slater from Saved by the Bell) died in a car accident? You may have around 1993, when rumors of the stars' demise spread like wildfire across the nation's middle schools. (We won't implicate our middle school by name, but we did have an honest-to-God moment of silence in English class.) Of course, the stars of Saved by the Bell are all doing fine, and have gone on to lucrative careers in amateur porn (Dustin Diamond), amateur dancing (Mario Lopez), and amateur porn-dancing (Elizabeth Berkeley). But the public's thirst for grisly death rumors about beloved stars has not been sated; in 1999, Blue's Clues host Steve Burns suffered a "heroin overdose," and just a month ago Tom Hanks "fell off a cliff." — Gwynne Watkins

39. J. Edgar Hoover cross-dressed

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was such a mean son-of-a-bitch it's no surprise that people whispered about him. Rumors that Hoover was gay or a cross-dresser have circulated for decades; one claim comes from Anthony Summers' 1993 biography Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Susan Rosenstiel, the ex-wife of liquor-industry chair Lewis Rosenstiel, claimed she had seen Hoover in a dress, stockings, heels and wig at a party hosted by gadfly lawyer Roy Cohn. This seems fairly unlikely; historian Athan Theoharis notes that anyone as secretive and power-obsessed as Hoover would never have been so blatant about a predilection that could be embarrassing. We may never know the truth. — Peter Smith

38. Milton Berle had the biggest penis in Hollywood

You can die satisfied when your enormous penis has been mentioned, even tangentially, in the New Yorker. Milton Berle got just that honor, though he'd already kicked off; a 2002 story about the Friars Club memorial roast of Berle features Freddie Roman remarking, "We are here to honor Milton Berle, who passed away on March 27th. On May 1st and May 2nd, his penis will be buried." The New Yorker story is a fitting homage to Berle's colossal member, which for many years was, indeed, the talk of the town. Berle and the big penis shared many adventures; most famously, writer Alan Zweibel alleged that Berle had shown him his penis during rehearsals for his infamous Saturday Night Live appearance. Zweibel confirmed the penis's large size. — PS

37. Stevie Nicks' alternate cocaine-delivery method

Supposedly, Fleetwood Mac's gypsy songstress, hoping to spare her vocal cords from her severe blow habit, got a little help from a coke-straw-bearing groupie. Nicks tends to be pretty forthright about her history of cocaine abuse, and she denies this story. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. We all know "Gold Dust Woman" was autobiographical, but maybe the phrase "roadie blowing coke up my ass" didn't fit the rhyme scheme. — PS

36. Marisa Tomei won an Oscar by mistake

Many critics have their complaints about Marisa Tomei's Best Supporting Actress win for My Cousin Vinny in 1992 — so many, in fact, that a rumor materialized to explain it. According to lore, the presenter of the award, Jack Palance, couldn't read Vanessa Redgrave's name on the envelope and blurted out the name of the last nominee he had announced: Tomei. Other versions claim Palance uttered the wrong name because he was too stoned to know better, or because he had a crush on Tomei. Journalist Steve Pond, who covers the Oscars for Premiere, addresses the story directly in his book, The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. He writes that PricewaterhouseCoopers representatives "have very clear instructions that if a presenter opens the envelope and says the wrong name, they are to walk on stage, stop the show and announce the correct winner." Tomei quieted the chatter (somewhat) by receiving another nomination for In the Bedroom in 2001. — Kristin Gangwer

35. Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean

According to rumors, Uncle Walt was many things besides the father of Mickey Mouse: a Nazi, an anti-Semite, a communist. The most persistent tale, though, is that Disney was so obsessed with immortality that he made arrangements to have himself cryogenically frozen after death. Ever since Disney shuffled off this mortal coil in 1966, popular myth has found him frozen beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in California's Disneyland. Two biographies, Marc Eliot's Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince and Leonard Mosley's Disney's World, have kept this rumor alive and kicking. But though cryogenic freezing was a popular topic in the late '50s and early '60s, there's no evidence whatsoever that Disney had any specific interest or even knowledge of cryogenics, outside of dodgy anecdotal evidence. Who knows? Maybe one day Disney will be re-animated and will go on to rule the world with his legions of cartoon anthropomorphs enforcing his terrible will. We've seen Epcot Center. It's possible. — John Constantine

34. Prince Harry's father is not Prince Charles

It was clear — and tacitly accepted — that after only a few years of marriage, Prince Charles and Princess Diana were cheating on each other. Prince Harry was born in September 1984, and after the public glimpsed his puglike features and red hair, rumors began to circulate that he was the product of Diana's affair with army officer Major James Hewitt. Diana publicly admitted her liaison in 1995, but insisted that she met Hewitt too late for him to be Harry's father. Hewitt too claims that he first met Diana in May of 1986, when Harry was twenty months old. Simone Simmons, a former close friend of the Princess, wrote Diana: The Last Word, a book serialized in The Sun. In it, she clamed that Diana was forced to carry out paternity tests on both Harry and his brother, Prince William. The tests reportedly showed that both boys were fathered by Prince Charles. — Catrinel Bartolomeu

33. Napoleon's Bonaparte is a collector's item

A number of famous penises are said to be floating about the world, having various adventures long after their owners went toes-up. John Dillinger's is said to be in the Smithsonian, and the Russian Museum of Erotica proudly boasts Rasputin's. But the Holy Grail of infamous dongs is that of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte's autopsy was performed in 1821 by his personal doctor, in the presence of seventeen witnesses, including seven British doctors and a priest. Organs removed from Napoleon included his heart, which he requested be delivered to his wife, and his stomach, which the assembled experts agreed was ridden with cancer and the cause of Napoleon's demise. Accounts of the autopsy claim the penis was small (guy couldn't catch a break), but there's no mention of its removal. In 1916, the priest's descendants sold off a collection of Naploeonic relics that included "the mummified tendon taken from Napoleon's body during the post-mortem." The memento has since changed hands a number of times; the latest story is that American urologist John Lattimer bought it at auction in 1977. Lattimer defends its authenticity today, but it's hard to disagree with Sir Arthur Keith's 1913 argument that, given the number of witnesses at the autopsy, someone probably would have noticed if his penis went missing. — JC

32. Lyndon Johnson, exhibitionist

Climbing the ladder of American society all the way to the top requires a certain amount of ego. This may explain why LBJ was so proud of his penis, which he allegedly nicknamed "Jumbo." According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and author of Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream, Johnson had unorthodox Presidential customs. During meetings, he would suddenly decide it was time for a swimming break. Then he'd drag everyone down to the White House pool, strip naked and invite the rest to do the same. When Johnson needed to visit the toilet mid-conversation, he would insist whomever he was talking with continue the conversation while he shat. Goodwin was a White House Fellow during Johnson's administration, so she may have been witness to/victim of these practices herself. — JC

31. Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy bearded for each other

Hepburn was a legendary tomboy, so it's easy to understand the popularity of the rumor that she was a lesbian, that her lover Tracy was gay, and that they were bearding for each other. According to William J. Mann's biography Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, published last month, Hepburn was asexual, Tracy was probably very gay, and Hepburn was less his lover than his caretaker, though they had a strong nonsexual connection. Of course, this could be standard Hollywood bio sleaze, but hey, Publisher's Weekly really liked the book (they called it "definitive," even!) — PS