Celebrity Pranks That Went Too Far

Celebrity pranks are arguably an important part of pop culture. They're so entertaining that they've been the focus of a few reality TV shows, including MTV's "Punk'd." It's perhaps no surprise that many fans love celebrity pranks. They allow us to see stars placed in disorienting situations that often reveal their real personalities.

Most celeb pranks are light-hearted. For example, Kevin Hart and Nick Cannon have a hilarious ongoing prank war that's harsh but friendly. Fans received a major update on the back-and-forth pranks when Hart took to Instagram to reveal that Cannon gifted him a llama for his birthday. The comedian got back at his buddy by putting his phone number on a billboard. "For any advice on fatherhood? Call my best friend Nick Cannon," the sign reads. Hart's joke pokes fun at the fact that the "Wild 'N Out" host is partially known for fathering 12 kids with six different women.

Nick Cannon shared how he got back at the comedian during an episode of "The Nick Cannon Show." He revealed that he wrapped his private jet with a giant photo of his face. The plane also read "Kevin rides the Cannon." Cannon explained why he and Hart participate in this prank war. "But people don't understand this is what we do," he said on the show. "Like, this is our friendship."

Unfortunately, there have been quite a few star-studded pranks that weren't quite as lighthearted. Keep reading to find out more about these celebrity pranks that went too far.

Some might say that "Punk'd" is one of the most famous celebrity prank shows to date. It brought us many hilarious moments like that time Ashton Kutcher tricked Beyoncé into believing she knocked over a massive Christmas tree. In a separate episode, Zac Efron was led to believe he had been falsely accused of robbing a store. As you can see, these pranks didn't typically get too brutal. However, Zach Braff's episode was an exception. The actor got so violent that some scenes didn't make it onto the show.

Braff detailed the incident during an appearance on "The Graham Norton Show." He explained that his "Scrubs" co-star, Donald Faison, helped set up the prank. A group of kids painted Braff's new Porsche because he refused to purchase alcohol for them before entering a nearby liquor store. When Braff left the store, he returned to his car to see that it had been covered in (removable) paint.

The actor caught up with one of the kids and attacked him. Braff shared that he didn't realize the culprit was so young. "Of course they edited that bit out because they don't really want you beating up children on MTV," the former "Community" actor told Norton. We might have never would have known how intense things can get behind the scenes of "Punk'd" if it weren't for Braff.

The vulgar voicemail messages Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left for the late actor Andrew Sachs may have gone down as some of the most inappropriate pranks of all time. The incident was so controversial that it was eventually named "Sachsgate." Brand and Ross decided to prank Sachs as part of their BBC Radio show in 2008 after he revealed he wasn't available for an interview.

"Hello Andrew Sachs, this is Russell Brand," Brand said at the start of one message (via The Guardian) "... you are meant to be on my show now mate ... I am here with Jonathan Ross. I could still do the interview to your answerphone." The pair went on to joke about Brand having sex with Sachs' granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. After exchanging several lines of vulgar banter, Ross said, "The saving grace is you didn't have anything to do with his granddaughter did you?" Brand replied, "Oh actually I did, I slept with her, but it was ultimately undermined, not undermined, underlined with love ..."

These pranks resulted in so much controversy that the BBC fired Brand and suspended Ross. Sachs revealed how he felt about the vulgar jokes in a letter published by Daily Mail. "Their lewd banter was deeply hurtful for me, my wife, our daughter and our granddaughter," he penned in part. "It not only caused pain but huge stress to the family." Ross and Brand did eventually apologize.

It's hard to imagine that staging a natural disaster could even be an option for a prank, but that's exactly what the producers of "Punk'd" did when Drake was the target of an earthquake simulation prank for the show. The chaotic episode began with the rapper thinking Secret Service agents were going to drive him to go meet then-Vice President Joe Biden. He's sitting inside what he believes to be a Secret Service vehicle in a parking garage when the staged earthquake takes place.

As if that's not stressful enough, the prank intensified after Ashton Kutcher sent out a man who hopped into the car with Drake for protection. A "pregnant" woman and her husband follow behind shortly after and demand that Drake move his vehicle so they can exit the garage, but he doesn't have the keys. The husband gets into the car to search for the keys himself, finds a taser instead, and tases his pregnant wife – all under Kutcher's instruction. Drake is clearly stressed and he even revealed at the end of the episode that he made a phone call to his mother amidst the turmoil.

Kutcher revealed some of the behind-the-scenes details of the episode during an appearance on "The Late Late Show with James Corden." It turns out that Drake may have been even more fearful than he appeared on camera. "He jumped in his buddy's lap," Kutcher said of the "Rich Flex" rapper.

Tori Spelling took to Instagram to announce a fake pregnancy as an April Fool's Day prank in 2021. This didn't go over well as you might have already guessed. The since-deleted post featured Spelling embracing her baby bump. "No. 6," she wrote in the caption. Some fans congratulated the reality TV star while others questioned whether her post was nothing more than a prank. "I really hope you aren't using a pregnancy as an April fools joke considering there are so many women out there who wish they could have just one child," one user wrote in the comments of the post. "You have been blessed with 5, please have compassion and empathy. This is nothing to joke about!"

The backlash got so intense that Spelling eventually came forward to reveal her intention behind the joke. "I know that pregnancy is an extreme blessing," she penned in a separate since-deleted Instagram post. "And I would never intentionally poke fun at losing a child or not being able to carry one. I myself have miscarried. My post was simply to turn the tables for once on the press. They constantly create wild and often hurtful stories about me, my body, and my family." Many celebs have come under fire for pregnancy pranks over the years, so it's interesting that Spelling seemingly didn't predict her joke wouldn't be well received.

The Game's Twitter prank got him in trouble with the police. The "How We Do" rapper took to the social media platform to claim that he was looking for interns. "Lookin 4 a intern," he wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "Male/female. Just picking some 1 randomly ... If u in LA & over the age 18 witta car, [contact] me." He included a phone number that actually belonged to the Compton Police Department.

The department opened an investigation following the prank, per The Los Angeles Times. The Game may have gotten a kick out of the prank but Compton police didn't find it funny. Captain Mike Parker recalled the moment phone calls started rolling in. "It was almost like a symphony of misery," he told The Los Angeles Times. "You've got a multitude of phones ringing simultaneously."

The Game fired back at the police department on Twitter. "Yall can track a tweet down but cant solve murders!," he wrote. "Dat was an accident but maybe now yall can actually do yall job !!!! #iSpeak4ThePeople." According to The Hollywood Reporter, the investigation involving the rapper was later dropped ... even though he didn't seem all that apologetic.

Much like Nick Cannon and Kevin Hart, Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio are also known to poke fun at each other. DiCaprio once pranked the actor by ambushing him on a sidewalk. He walked up to Hill with a phone in front of his face, acting more like a paparazzi or a fan than a fellow celebrity. Hill seemed startled, so it might be safe to say that DiCaprio succeeded in his mission of pranking his pal.

While that prank wasn't all that bad, Hill took things to the next level while he and DiCaprio were filming "Wolf of Wall Street." During an interview with WENN (via Digital Spy), the actor revealed that he came up with a plan to get back at his co-star for being extra rough during fight scenes. "In one of the most emotional scenes in the movie, we're eating sushi and in the script he's supposed to say, 'Do you want that last piece?'... and I say, 'Yes', and I eat it," Hill explained. "When we did the first take, he says, 'Do you want that last piece?' and I go, 'No, you have it.' So he had to do 100 takes of eating [sushi]over and over again and I was like, 'This is my revenge right here.' By the end of the night, he was on the floor, throwing up into a waste bin and everyone was like, 'Leo, are you okay?'" We wonder if DiCaprio ever got back at Hill for his cruel prank.

YouTuber Sam Pepper faced a great deal of backlash following his prank involving fellow social media creators Sam Golbach and Colby Brock. It's hard to believe that someone could even conceptualize and execute a stagged kidnapping and murder for a prank, but that's exactly what happened. Golbach was the target of the prank while his friend, Brock, was in on it.

The video (which has since been deleted and reuploaded by another YouTube account) starts out with the friends getting out of their vehicle to address car issues staged by Brock as part of the prank. They are then approached by a "kidnapper" who ties Golbach up and puts him in a trunk. In the following scene, Brock and Golbach sit beside each other as they're tied up. The fake kidnapper decides to shoot Brock, and Golbach is led to believe that he just watched his best friend die in front of him.

By now you can probably see why many fans didn't find the prank funny. One viewer took to Twitter to write, "I once thought Sam Pepper was alright, however, his recent video disgusts me. Nobody should ever exploit absolute desperation and terror ..." Pepper also chimed in on the conversation himself. "I had spoken to Colby about it to see what Sam's reaction was going to be,'" he told Metro. "It's not something that's going to affect him day in day out – it looks more dramatic in the video than it did in real life."

Paris Hilton was the target of a plane crash prank in 2015. She was featured on the Egyptian TV show "Ramez in Control." The program is similar to "Punk'd" but a bit more extreme. In Hilton's episode, she's led to believe that her plane is crashing and about to land in water. An actor who is posing as a passenger even jumps out of the plane using a parachute to make things look more real. Hilton is clearly distressed in the clip. "I said I didn't want to go on that plane" she said after the plane ultimately landed safely in the end.

TMZ later reported that Hilton planned to file a lawsuit against the prankster who staged the plane crash. An anonymous source also alleged that the star was so shaken up that she was afraid to board planes at all. They claimed that Hilton wasn't in on the prank, but a separate article from TMZ alleged otherwise – talk about a plot twist. The outlet reported they received documents from the company behind "Ramez In Control" that claimed they asked a number of celebrities to join in on the prank before eventually settling on Hilton. It was also alleged that the chosen star received a hefty paycheck for their involvement. If this is true, then it looks like viewers were the only victims of this prank.