Debunked Movie Urban Legends That Need To Die

Maybe the darkest film rumor was that you can see a munchkin dangling in the background during a scene in The Wizard of Oz.

This is the most infamous fake movie fact that is also the darkest. It has all the elements: darkness, intrigue, mystery…but most importantly: fiction. There are no records of anyone dying on set, never mind an actor taking their own life. It’s a beloved movie, and like most beloved movies, people try to generate new fun facts and “you missed this” moments.

It’s time to officially retire this one and accept that conspiracy theorists got their way by making this fake story stay alive for this long.

Staying in Oz, there’s a very crude urban legend that the actors that portrayed the munchkins were having wild parties and orgies in their hotel every day after filming.

This urban legend all started from Judy Garland, who made an appearance on a late-night show, claiming munchkin actors threw wild orgies and would swing off the hotel chandeliers. There is no fact around this story other than a probably nervous celebrity on a late night show trying to make little people the butt of the joke.

In a scene in The Lion King, Simba plops down on the grass and kicks up a cloud of dust. People were quick to claim that, if you pause the scene, the dust spells out the word “SEX” in the night sky. (Also, my new band name is going to be “Sex in the Night Sky.”) 

What we really see animated in this moment are the letters “SFX” as a little Easter egg for the special effects department. Like many of the entries on this list, the believers will deny that and say it’s just a cover. Keep having fun drawing your weirdly-shaped “E,” ya conspiracy theorists.  

People are going to throw a fit about this one in the comments, but here we go:

In Django Unchained, people claim and share the wild story that Leonardo DiCaprio smears his own blood all over Kerry Washington’s face because they were so in the moment of the scene.

This one is a classic example of trying to make a real movie fun fact even more extreme. Yes, DiCaprio sliced his hand on a glass. BUT, the blood he wipes on Kerry Washington’s face was done with fake blood they poured on DiCaprio’s hand between takes after wrapping the wound up. There are clearly cuts within the scene and disproportionate amounts of blood on DiCaprio’s hand from shot to shot. Just because people, and even actors, try to pump up a behind-the-scenes moment, doesn’t make it true (see, again: Judy Garland claiming the munchkin actors had orgies).

I’ll say this, if I were DiCaprio, I would come out and confirm this, because otherwise, he rubbed his own blood on his Black co-star’s face while in character as a slave owner. I certainly wouldn’t want that for my public image.

During his speech below deck in Jaws, some people spread the false story that Shaw performed this brilliant scene while extremely drunk.

While there are recorded statements about Shaw’s drinking habits on set, the truth of the story is that he couldn’t properly film the scene the initial day because he was so drunk. The final product you see on screen is him sobered up the following day.

LOTR fans are filled to the brim with fun facts. Google the words “Aragorn” and “toe,” and I promise you won’t regret it. But one untrue fun fact is that Viggo Mortensen, during the final fight in Fellowship of the Ring, blocked a real knife with his sword after it was accidentally thrown at his face.

While a knife is thrown at Mortensen, according to director Peter Jackson, it was a planned and controlled stunt. Seriously, do you think an actor would “accidentally” throw a real knife at another person’s head?

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Braveheart wasn’t shot in three weeks.

One of the weirdest fake stories, which can only be described as people misinterpreting a real fun fact, is that the entire movie only took three weeks to film.

Peddlers of this fake fact are most likely mistaking how the production had spent six weeks filming on location in Scotland…before filming in other nearby locations.

One very weird fun myth is that, during Gene Kelly’s famous number when he sings in the rain in that one movie, the droplets are actually milk.

Now, using milk to mix into rainwater was a strategy for some filmmakers to make rain more prominent on-screen, but there is no confirmed report that the rain in the famous dance scene is, in fact, even partially milk. Plus, the urban legend has literally evolved into it being straight-up milk, not just a mix.

Whether believers of this fake fact think the milk is 2% or soy, I just don’t know.

Another old school myth that older generations still believe to this day is that during the chariot race in Ben-Hur, one of the falling chariot riders is trampled to death by the horses.

There is no record of anyone dying on the set of Ben-Hur. Interestingly enough, the same fake actor name used as the victim is used for other fake movie urban legends, too. And, again, like the Brandon Lee death, it is pretty disrespectful to think filmmakers would leave something like that in the final product.