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.
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.”
The Spread: Selena Gomez, Netanyahu, and Beyond
The Carrey incident opened the floodgates. Suddenly, clone theories spread to other celebrities:
- Selena Gomez: Conspiracy theorists claimed she’d been replaced by a clone due to “changed behavior and appearance” — her alleged weight loss, different demeanor, and “weird” social media posts meant it wasn’t the real her.
- Benjamin Netanyahu: The now-infamous “six finger” video sparked claims the Israeli PM was dead, cloned, or AI-generated. The video showed what appeared to be six fingers on his hand — an obvious AI glitch to some, proof of a cover-up to others.
The internet has dubbed the phenomenon “The Clone Age” — a play on “The Matrix.” Unlike the sci-fi film, though, there is no red pill to reveal the truth. There is only increasingly sophisticated AI.
Why Now? The AI Factor Has Changed Everything
This isn’t just regular celebrity gossip. Something has fundamentally changed in the way we consume and trust visual information:
1. Deepfake saturation — AI-generated videos of celebrities doing and saying things they never did are everywhere. Crypto scams alone have used celebrity deepfakes at massive scale. Meta just sued Brazilian and Chinese advertisers over this.
2. The uncanny valley crossed — AI images have become indistinguishable from real photos. When everything could be fake, everything is fake to conspiracy-minded thinkers.
3. Trust collapse — In a post-COVID, post-election misinformation world, trust in institutions (including red carpets and award shows) is at an all-time low. “They’re hiding the real person” fits a broader pattern of institutional distrust.
4. The “proof” is visual — Unlike other conspiracies that require you to believe in shadowy organizations, this one lets people point at a photo and say “look — it’s wrong.”
The Deeper Question: What Is Identity?
This trend touches something deeper than celebrity gossip:
- What is identity if appearance can be copied perfectly?
- If we can’t trust our eyes, what can we trust?
- Are we approaching a world where “proof of life” becomes a legal requirement for public figures?
Gayle King and Tom Hanks are among the celebrities who have publicly denounced AI-generated videos of them. As Today.com reports, the trend has reached a point where distinguishing reality from fabrication requires active effort.
The conspiracy theories may be absurd. But in a world where AI can generate photorealistic images of anyone doing anything, the line between “real” and “generated” has become impossibly thin. And that uncertainty is where these theories thrive.
Welcome to The Clone Age. No one is safe. No one is sure who — or what — they’re looking at.
Read more about how the Carrey conspiracy spiraled on The Hollywood Reporter.
