19 Times People Met Someone Famous And Didn’t Even Realize Or Care
Article Created by: Justin Keturka
Celebrities are just like us. Of course, not always; they make millions of dollars, live in giant mansions, and travel on private jets. But when you strip them away from all of the wealth and glamor to just a person visiting a zoo or having a coffee, we might not even recognize them.
A few years back, Redditor Kimantha_Allerdings asked other users to share their funniest “I met a celebrity but didn’t let on that I knew who they were” stories and their post (as well as the comments) has been making a comeback, so we decided it would be a good idea to show you the wildest ones.
Now, can you believe everything anonymous people on the internet say? Probably not. But these anecdotes are still entertaining.
My mom yelled at Pierce Brosnan. She and my dad were at a ski resort getting lunch. My mother gets quite hangry (an unfortunate trait I inherited) and was waiting in line to order. Right as she’s about to order a guy tried to cut in front of her and interrupt her. She snapped and told him to go to the back of the line like everyone else. She got her food and went back to my dad sitting there mouth wide open in shock.
“Do you know who that was?”
“No?!”
“That was Pierce Brosnan. You just yelled at James bond”
“Well he shouldn’t have tried to cut me”
This happened yesterday! My wife took my son to the zoo, and he wanted to read every little plaque in the reptile area. My wife was distracted for a moment, so he asked the nearest stranger to read the plaque for him. My wife turned around to see Scarlett Johansson happily reading the info to him.
My mom is a big sports fan. One time she was shopping at and saw a really large, fit looking man who she didn’t immediately recognize but seemed familiar. She thought it must of been a professional football player or something, so she went up to the only other person in the shop, who was this smaller wierd-looking guy, and asked him if he knew who the athletic looking man was. The short guy looked at my mom and said “That’s my bodyguard, I’m Elton John.”
This doesn’t count because it’s about my father in law, and he legitimately didn’t know who she was, but we were vacationing in Maine and spending a lot of time on the beach. My father in law would walk his dog early everyone morning. He met this lady and they would meet up and walk their dogs together then go their separate ways.
One morning I got up early to come with him, and to my surprise, we met up with Sigourney Weaver and went for a walk.
My dad met Robin Williams in an elevator. He got in and they rode a few floors in silence. They stopped on a floor and s bunch of fans ran in and started getting pics with Robin. My dad said he was gracious and took pics with everyone. The doors closed and they rode a few more floors and my dad turned and said “does that ever get old?” and Robin smiled and said “Nope. Never.” Then my dad got off on his floor and they nodded to one another and my dad went on with his day.
I helped Steven Spielberg move his daughter’s bags into her college dorm.
I was working a shift helping first-years move in and I see a guy in a hat and sunglasses who is unmistakably Spielberg. I strike up a conversation, ask if he needs help with the bags, etc. First names only — “We’re from CA. My wife, Kate, and I sent all our kids to East Coast schools though.” Stuff like that.
Later, when his daughter opened the door for the first time, he whipped out a camcorder and, wearing the biggest Dad grin, recorded the whole thing before turning the camera on my friend and me to ask us about the city.
So, I have a supporting (the luggage), speaking role in a limited release (home movie) film shot by Steven Spielberg.
I was in a book store in RI and was in the horror section. Picked up a book by Stephen King, and flipped it over and saw his picture on the back (or inside the cover, I don’t really remember).
I look up, and in the next aisle over, right across the book shelf from me, is a guy that looks exactly like Stephen King. So I hold up the book and say “is this you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good books”
“Thanks”
And that was that.
I worked at a Barnes & Noble in NY as a clerk, but once or twice I’d be called over to the in-store Starbucks cafe to help out whenever they were understaffed. One time, Alan Rickman came up and ordered something, I can’t recall what. I wrote “Hans Gruber” on his cup though. He smiled at me when he noticed it.
I was 10 years old in 2002 when my mom took me to the Bronx Zoo for the first time. It was a rainy day so we practically had the whole place to ourselves except for 3 British kids running around, chaperoned by a woman. My mom quickly befriended the woman while I made like a kid and joined the hoard, looking at spiders and scorpians and sharing in the awe and excitement of the animals.
After about an hour when we said our goodbyes, my mother told me that the kid, Daniel, who I had been hanging out with had played Harry Potter in the movie that came out last year.
I had thought he looked familiar.
I had the fortune of being on the same plane as Stan Lee. We were being shuttled to another part of the airport. I whispered to what I assumed to be his bodyguard that I didn’t want to lead others on who he was so please just let him know that I appreciate his work. He nodded then whispered into Stan Lee’s ear. He then smiled and put his head down in acknowledgement.
Rest In Peace big guy. You were a big part of my childhood.
My friend’s mom (over 70yrs old) owns a small asian grocery store. Post Malone came walking in with his girlfriend and his mom had no idea who he was. A few cute things happened:
1. She was nervous because of his tattoos, but happy/not worried once he bought a lot of food. She had no idea he was a celebrity.
2. She gave him a free snack for buying so much food and told him to come back for lunchtime for cheap and tasty gyoza (he did come back the next day!)
3. She was worried he would get mugged going to his car because of 3 big men outside so she followed him outside (they were his bodyguards)
4. She really liked his “cool car” (it was a lamborghini)
She told my friend about the encounter that evening and he pulled up a youtube video based on the description – it was him. When Post Malone came back the next day for Gyoza she got a selfie with him (it’s on my friends phone so I don’t have the picture available right now). Whole thing is adorable with how innocent his mom is.
Sigourney Weaver. I think I was in the middle of selling her a jacket and some art from the Whitney museum gift shop before I truly recognized her. She was amazingly tall and I got to bask in the glory that was Ripley. Totally makes sense why they casted her as the Xeno queen fighter she was. Just her presence alone was both intimidating and alluring. SO cool.
Was walking out of a gas station over on Crescent Heights and Sunset and heard a “hey!…hey!” coming from a cracked window on tinted out range rover that was parked at one of the pumps. I walk over to the car to see Jeff Goldblum, who had somehow seen my gold ring I was wearing on my right hand from 20 feet away. He proceeds to tell me how he loves my ring and has been looking for one just like it and asks me where I got it. I tell him it was my grandfather’s and he asks to see it up close. I hold my hand up to Jeff Goldblum, he takes my hand, gushes about the ring for a minute and thanks me. I said sure and walked back to my apartment.
I like to think we’re friends now.
My husband was vacationing in Arizona, killing time in a bar over a burger and a beer. A guy sits next to him and my husband has a nice chat with him. The guy leaves and my husband goes to close his tab and the bartender tells him it’s been covered by the guy he was talking to.
The bartender asks if he knows who he was talking to. My husband has no idea. Chuck Norris, it was his bar.
Edit: How embarrassing. It wasn’t Arizona, it is Woody’s Wharf in Newport, California and still exists today. The story is still true. I just flaked on the location. Thanks for all the fun comments!
Met Elon Musk in a Tesla store in LA. Really wanted to meet him but didn’t want to be that guy. Decided I had a plan, so walked up to him and said, “Excuse me, do you work here?”
He replied, “I mean yeah kind of”.
I say, “Ah what can you tell me about the entertainment console of the Model S?”
He says, “let me see if I can find someone to help you.”
To which I say, “nah I’m just f**king with you”
He laughed and shook my hand and walked off.
A couple of years ago me and my sister were at Comic-Con. You tend to see some a lot of famous people there, but it’s usually with them in booths with guards and stuff (with the exception of Seth Green).
Anyway, me and my sister were at one of the booths waiting for their giveaways when a man suddenly came up beside me all excited and in a bit of wonder. He told us how great everything was there and how much of an experience it was for him there, all in a while I was probably looking at him strangely because of how familiar his accent and his voice and his face and his blond hair was. He asked where we got our poster tubes, and that’s probably when I remembered who he was but decided to just not mention it because I was kind of still in disbelief and pointed him to one of the far off booths where they sell poster tubes.
The man was Owen Wilson. I hadn’t been sure it was him, because I always thought he’d be a lot taller. It was kind of warming to see how excited he was to be there in the crowds.
One of my best friends doppelganger is Ethan Hawke. Like it’s scary how much he resembles him, to the point that during those stupid facebook challenges he just changed his profile picture to him and nobody realized it. Also his favorite story was one time at San Diego Comic Con he actually confused Rosario Dawson at a hotel bar.
Anyway one night I’m walking home from work in NYC, and I see who I thought was my friend, John just walking on a kind of secluded part of of 9th ave around Hells Kitchen, and I yell “JOHN!”
He doesn’t turn around.
So I decide to yell it again, and instead of responding his pace quickens. I decide the best thing to do is to run at him which seemed to terrify him as keep in mind it’s late and there are very few people around. Anyway I catch up to him and say “Oh, you’re not John” and then walk away from what was a very frightened Ethan Hawke.
My dad and I bumped into Michael Jordan at a Walgreen’s near Chicago. This was back in 2006 or so.
We were picking out birthday cards for my mom, and MJ and his son came in the same aisle browsing some cards. My dad kept his cool and continued to look through different cards, giving him his personal space. I, on the other hand, was 9 years old and in awe, sort of staring at him. After MJ picked out his card, he winked at me and gave me a walk-by fist bump.
Didn’t really set in until I was older how cool that was.
Not sure if this counts but when I was 15 I was really into playing Starcraft (being a 3 month old game at the time) on battle.net. I did mostly 3v3 games. After finishing this one particularly epic match (close game, we won), we all got into a chat room to talk about how fun that was. Iirc, one of them says something to the effect of “not sure if you all care but you just beat Ben Affleck.” Of course we all ask him to prove it, so he told us to wait a minute and visit his official website’s message board (benaffleck.com or something like that). He had just made a post in red (red being Ben Affleck himself) about just losing a game of Starcraft. We briefly chatted with him and that was it.
