From Jim Carrey to Benjamin Netanyahu, conspiracy theorists are claiming celebrities and politicians are being replaced by clones. The driving force? AI has made it impossible to trust what we see.
It started with a man accepting an award in Paris. In late February 2026, Jim Carrey made his first public appearance in years at the César Awards, receiving an honorary award. It should have been a celebration of a legendary career. Instead, social media exploded with a new conspiracy theory: the man on that red carpet was not the real Jim Carrey.
He was a clone.
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How It Started: The Jim Carrey Incident
On February 27, 2026, Jim Carrey appeared at the César Awards in Paris to receive an honorary award. It was his first public appearance in years. Within hours, fans and conspiracy theorists were claiming the man in the photos wasn’t the real Carrey. They pointed to his eyes, his stature, his “different” look. Theories ranged from “body double” to outright “clone.”
Three catalysts fueled the fire:
- A drag artist’s joke taken seriously: Alexis Stone, a famous drag impersonator, posted on Instagram claiming he had impersonated Carrey at the event. The post went viral — but it was a joke that got taken seriously.
- Old footage resurfaced: A clip from a 1994 Letterman appearance where Carrey joked about using “decoys” to fool paparazzi was dug up and treated as evidence.
- AI image generation: Midjourney and Sora had been generating hyper-realistic celebrity images for months. People assumed any weird-looking photo must be AI-generated.
The César Awards organizer told The Guardian that Carrey had “worked on his speech in French for months” — clear evidence it was really him. Carrey’s publicist issued a statement confirming his identity. Carrey himself addressed the controversy. None of it mattered.
As The Guardian‘s Dave Schilling put it: “The Jim Carrey clone conspiracy is absurd. Of course people believe it. These days, I can’t blame them for endless skepticism.”
