22 Celebs Who Pranked Fans

Let’s face it: Everyone can do the whole “plastic over the toilet seat,” “toothpaste in your Oreos,” “blindfold your best friend and accidentally make her walk into a sign pole” thing (lol, sorry Corie!) but these celebs went just a tad bit further with their pranks.

In honor of April Fools’ Day, we have celebs doing everything from dressing up in disguise, popping out of bathroom stalls, pretending to be wax figures come to life… and much, much more, all for the sake of pranking their fans, and pranking ‘em good. 

Check out 22 of the most epic celeb pranks below! 

1. Adele

Photo: Getty Images

Only Adele can impersonate herself and actually manage to convince other Adele impersonators that she’s not the real deal. That’s exactly what happened on the BBC, when Adele — disguised as Adele impersonator Jenny — waited and chatted in line with other Adele impersonators who were getting ready to perform. When they caught on, however, was as soon as “Jenny” opened her mouth and started to sing. Fans would know those pipes anywhere.

2. Justin Bieber

Photo: Getty Images

Justin Bieber is pretty much the king of pranks, but perhaps the stunt where he hid in the bathroom stall and jumped out at Ellen DeGeneres’ show guests was his best one yet. Imagine going into the bathroom expecting to pee and instead see JB jumping out at you. Yeah.

3. Drake

Photo: Getty Images

Jimmy Kimmel gave Drake the task of disguising himself and interviewing people on the street about Drake. As you can imagine, the whole thing was epic AF — especially when Drizzy revealed his real identity.

4. 5 Seconds of Summer

Photo: Getty Images

The guys of 5SOS have pranked their fans a time or two (so many Target bits), but one of our faves was when fans were brought into “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and kissed the guys onscreen (literally, on the monitor where the band was being shown). 5SOS got ‘em good when the girls realized they were actually “kissing” costumed weirdos who had exchanged spots with the 5SOS members. Of course, Luke, Calum, Ashton, and Michael then actually walked out and met each girl IRL, so no harm done there.

5. One Direction

Photo: Getty Images

The guys of 1D pretended to be the wax versions of themselves at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, which is really just hilarious enough. Fans were brought in to see the mannequins, and after a minute of One Direction being as still as they possibly could, let loose on the fans and scared them half to death.

6. Carrie Underwood

Photo: Getty Images

Carrie Underwood has a heart of gold. Her prank starts out when she popped into a Dick’s Sporting Goods, dressed in disguise, and pretended to be a sales associate selling her own clothing line at the store. She didn’t last too long, though — as the shoppers quickly started realizing they recognized her from somewhere...

7. Austin Mahone

Photo: Getty Images

Austin Mahone, dressed in a beard and a fat suit, once pranked fans who were visiting his wax figure at Madame Tussauds in Miami. He pretended to be the photographer, but the fans caught on fast.

8. *NSYNC

Photo: Getty Images

Lance Bass got everyone’s hopes up in 2014 when he tweeted, “*NSYNC Announce Reunion: 2 New Songs, Tour Coming in 2015.” Too bad the date was April 1.

9. Joe Jonas

Photo: Getty Images

Joe Jonas and Hailee Steinfeld’s respective love lives may be under constant scrutiny, but this time the former JoBro mashed ‘em up together and pranked fans into thinking he and Haiz were expecting a baby, using the ol’ sonogram-on-Twitter trick during a previous April Fool’s.

10. Gwen Stefani

Photo: Getty Images

Another one for the April Fool’s Day pregnancy announcement was Gwen Stefani, who tricked fans last year when she Instagrammed a photo of a sonogram and told everyone, “It’s a girl!"

11. Nicki Minaj

Photo: Getty Images

Nicki got her Barbz good in October 2016 when she tweeted that she was dropping an album at midnight called <i>Pick My Fruit Out.</i> The tracklist was literally just a list of fruits, including “Bananas (Harambe interlude”), which is when most people realized she was totally joking.

12. Channing Tatum

Photo: Getty Images

There are truly no words for this Channing Tatum prank. The man dressed up as a classy older gentleman, interviewed fans at a screening of Magic Mike XXL, and then did a strip tease before revealing himself to be, well, Channing Tatum. The amount of screams and hand-fanning going on in that room doesn’t even begin to cover it.

13. Ansel Elgort

Photo: Getty Images

Jimmy Kimmel, being quite the prankster himself, knew exactly how to be Uncle of the Year to his young niece: Have her meet her biggest celeb crush, Ansel Elgort. The catch is, he was dressed up in a lion suit and had a full-on conversation about himself with her.

14. James Franco

Photo: Getty Images

James Franco had Selenators up in arms that time he captioned an Instagram photo of Selena Gomez in costume, carrying a baby. “Selena and I had a baby over Sprang Break,” he joked, no doubt a reference to their movie Spring Breakers. (The image itself is from In Dubious Battle, a movie she was starring in and he was directing). But still — the ‘gram was enough to send fans into an initial shock of “WTF.” As the date was March 30, it was an early April Fool’s prank indeed.

15. Taylor Swift

Photo: Getty Images

Taylor Swift once pranked Keith Urban’s performance of “Kiss a Girl” by dressing up in full costume as one of the members of the glam-rock band KISS.

16. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Photo: Getty Images

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis legit once called a scalper (a “fake fan,” one might say) looking to buy the tickets for their own show. Talk about a good comeuppance!

17. Dennis Quaid

Photo: Getty Images

Um…. can anyone forget about the most epic prank of all-time when Ellen DeGeneres, through an ear-piece, was feeding Dennis Quaid comments when he walked into a Starbucks? “DENNIS QUAID IS HERE!” will never die.

18. Amy Schumer

Photo: Getty Images

OK, so this may not have been a prank on a fan, but Amy Schumer revealed that she once sexted Katie Couric’s husband from Katie’s phone. “I didn’t even think about it. It all happened so fast!” she recalled on a talk show later. We can feel the embarrassment from here!

19. Lady Gaga 

Photo: Katherine Tyler for iHeartRadio

Mother Monster surprised the luckiest Gaga super-fan ever at iHeartRadio, where they got to chat about Gaga’s music and the fan was able to tell the singer everything she ever wanted to. Aw!

20. Pharrell

Photo: Getty Images

There was not a dry eye in the house when Pharrell walked into a pre-school teacher’s classroom — mid “Happy” performance with the students — to help give her a hand. The shock and sweetness makes this vid totally worth a watch.

21. Mariah Carey 

Photo: Getty Images

The diva herself surprised some serious Mariah stans on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” randomly entering rooms where unsuspecting fans were already singing her tunes. Um… imagine what happened next when they realized she was singing in the room with them. 

22. Selena Gomez 

Photo: Getty Images

Sel surprised a fan back in her Disney Channel days on an episode of “Prankstars.” Like Adele and Drake, she went undercover (though the costume wasn’t that elaborate) — but the fan had no idea she was actually talking to Sel until later on! So funny!