33 hilarious pranks celebrities have pulled on each other

August 26, 2024

When they're not on camera, they've admitted to pulling pranks on each other in their downtime. Aside from on-set jokes, some of the best pranks against other stars also happen when celebrities are just spotted in public, minding their own business.

Some pranks are simple (like Leonardo DiCaprio running up to Jonah Hill, pretending to be an excited fan), while others are a bit more complex (like that time Ashton Kutcher convinced Drake that an earthquake was happening).

Regardless of the degree, we always look forward to hearing about the crazy practical jokes and shenanigans that celebrities engage in.

Keep reading to learn about some of the most hilarious pranks that stars have admitted to pulling on each other.

Ellen DeGeneres terrified Taylor Swift when the singer made an appearance on her show in 2010.

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As Swift made her way into her dressing room bathroom, DeGeneres jumped up and Swift dropped to the floor screaming. When she realized that it was DeGeneres, Swift and her mom both started laughing hysterically. Swift forgave DeGeneres though, and the two hugged afterward.

Rihanna snuck into Jimmy Kimmels house in the middle of the night to disturb him.

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Kimmel was sleeping and had no idea what was happening when Rihanna went into his room, started throwing dollar bills and confetti on his bed, pointing flashlights at him, and blasting one of her hit songs. She continued dancing and jumping on his bed, while Kimmel looked around, clearly disoriented.

"It seemed like a UFO landed and I didn't know what was going on," Kimmel joked.

Leonardo DiCaprio ran up to Jonah Hill pretending to be a fan.

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When Jonah Hill was minding his own business and walking around New York City, he had no idea that his "Wolf of Wall Street" co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, would rush up to him as a fan in an attempt to spook him.

Jennifer Lawrence spray painted a bus that had Chris Pratts face on it.

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While Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt were traveling around the world to promote their film "Passengers," Lawrence was told that Pratt would take photos with her and post them on social media. The issue was that the photos shared by Pratt purposely cropped Lawrence out, or showed her not even looking at the camera.

Ashton Kutcher made Drake believe that an earthquake occurred.

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"He Canadian fetaled up into his buddy's lap," Kutcher said.

Unfortunately, that part of the filming wasn't included on the episode that aired.

Henry Cavill disguised himself to meet Will Smith as a fan at Comic Con.

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Kit Harington put a fake, severed Jon Snow head in Rose Leslies fridge.

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When Leslie opened the door, she shrieked in horror and fell to the floor "in tears."

He added: "She pretty much told me if I did it ever again, that would be it, and I think that's marriage included."

Brad Pitt pranked his "Oceans" co-star George Clooney, and he retaliated.

George Clooney is a notorious prankster, and and his pranks against Brad Pitt date back to their time working on the "Oceans" films.

"You guys might have already heard the story, but when we were in Rome, we first got to Italy, Brad had a memo put out in Italian that said to all the Italian crew that Mr. Clooney would appreciate it if you would only engage him as Danny Ocean or Mr. Ocean," Clooney explained. "Don't look at him in the eyes."

Clooney said this happened for about a month.

"Everywhere I went, it was like, 'OK, Mr. Ocean.' until I finally said, 'What the hell?'" Clooney added. "And when I found out, when it got into the paper that I was like, this diva that made all the crew call me Mr. Ocean, I felt like I had to get him."

Taylor Swift dressed as a member of KISS and surprised Keith Urban during his concert.

At a 2009 concert in Kansas City, Missouri, Taylor Swift pulled the ultimate prank on Keith Urban, who she was on tour with.

Adam Levine gave Blake Shelton a giant poster of his "Sexiest Man Alive" magazine cover.

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People who watch "The Voice" know that Adam Levine and Blake Shelton just love teasing each other. It's an essential part of their friendship. So when Adam Levine was named People's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2013, Levine rubbed it in.

"I took it, framed it ... This is not a cheap, practical joke, by the way," Levine said. "It was a lot more expensive than I care to admit. I framed it and I sent it to his house in Oklahoma."

Taron Egerton and Channing Tatum pranked each other on the set of "Kingsman: The Golden Circle."

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Channing Tatum and Taron Egerton starred in the 2017 film "Kingsman: The Golden Circle." In an interview, Egerton revealed that they played pranks on each other.

"I put a mannequin in his trailer bed with a wig on it and some empty wine bottles and a pair of high heels on the floor," Egerton told People . "And he came in one morning and thought there was a person in there and was quite freaked out."

Tatum took revenge by putting even more inappropriate items in Egerton's room during his last day on set.

"The day he left, he filled my trailer with I think it was about 20 sex dolls and some rather disturbingly large prosthetics," Egerton said. "It's on camera somewhere, someone filmed it I think. He spent some money on that. He really went to town."

Ben Affleck gave Henry Cavills movie trailer a Batman-themed makeover.

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Affleck captioned the video: "@HenryCavill, I'm flattered. I didn't know you were such a fan! We know#WhoWillWin."

Justin Bieber made Taylor Swift think that she caused a boat filled with wedding guests to blow up.

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Bieber got Swift to hang out with him in Malibu under the premise that they would be having a songwriting session, but he had a plan of his own that involved blowing up a boat. He convinced Swift to launch a firework. When the firecracker was released, it seemingly hit a nearby boat, which caught on fire.

Swift immediately started panicking, thinking that the people who escaped the boat were newlyweds, and the rest of their bridal party was on the burning boat.

"You're the worst," Swift said when Bieber revealed that it was a joke. "I was about to pass out."

Justin Theroux used to pop out of Jennifer Anistons closet to scare her.

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"He loves to scare me," Aniston said. "He hides in closets for 20 [minutes]."

In one situation, Aniston said that Theroux stayed in a closet and waited until she showed up before he popped out to scare her.

"We were shutting down the house and I got distracted cleaning up whatever and then I don't come right away and I'll get to the bedroom and he just comes flying out of a closet," she said. "I go, 'Have you been waiting here for like 25 minutes?'"

Will Smith stuck a Popsicle stick under Jada Pinkett Smiths shirt strap.

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In 2015, Will Smith played a small prank on wife Jada Pinkett Smith when he got bored one day. Taking to Facebook , he wrote: "I got board [sic] and put a Popsicle stick under Jada's strap. I wonder how long before she notices."

Emily Blunt and John Krasinski have been engaging in a prank war with Jimmy Kimmel for years.

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Emily Blunt and John Krasinski have an ongoing holiday prank war with Jimmy Kimmel and his wife. The pranks have become more elaborate over the years, from Blunt andKrasinski sneaking into the Kimmel residence and putting up holiday decorations to Kimmel and his team wrapping the exterior of Blunt and Krasinski's house with gift paper.

Amy Schumer purposely fell in front of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

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At the 2015 Time 100 gala , Amy Schumer decided to play a prank on Kim Kardashian and Kanye West while on the red carpet. In photos and videos captured at the carpet, Schumer is seen purposely (and dramatically) falling to the floor right in front of West and Kardashian, who look baffled.

Schumer said that "the energy changed" when West and Kardashian stepped onto the carpet and all eyes were on them, and that's when she decided that she wanted to prank them.

Leslie Mann and Cameron Diaz drew a moustache on Kate Upton while she was sleeping.

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During a flight, Upton fell asleep, so Mann and Diaz took a marker and drew a mustache on her.

"She was fast asleep, like right away, which makes me so mad because I can never sleep on flights," Mann explained. "So Cameron and I were up and were like, 'What can we do?' She's, like, passed out and we decided to draw."

Diaz added: "I'm drawing on her and she does not wake up. She's like a child! She's like a little baby."

Jeffrey Wright surprised Jennifer Lawrence with a box of crickets.

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During filming of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1," Lawrence was the subject of a gross prank pulled by Jeffrey Wright. One day, Wright decided to give Lawrence a Tiffany & Co. box and instead of finding a shiny piece of jewelry inside, the box was filled with crickets.

Even though Lawrence didn't appreciate the prank, her co-star, Josh Hutcherson, thought it was amazing.

"That was like, the best prank ever pulled on anyone," Hutcherson said. "It was fantastic."

Alan Rickman and Michael Gambon used a fart machine to prank Daniel Radcliffe.

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The specific scene involved Radcliffe and other actors sleeping on the floor of the great hall while Snape and Dumbledore spoke. As they filmed the scene, the machine interrupted Gambon's lines, and made it look like Radcliffe was the source of the noise.

"There's a shot in the great hall of all the kids sleeping in the great hall, and the camera starts very very wide, and comes in so that it's an inch from my face, a very long developing set, yeah, and Alan Rickman decided he would plant one of those fart machines in my, uh, sleeping bag, and they waited until like, the camera had come in for this huge DRAMATIC developing shot, and then unleashed this tremendous noise in the great hall," Radcliffe wrote.

Radcliffe added: "I think I laughed a lot, was probably a bit embarrassed, but it was really really funny."

Jason Sudeikis played homage to Jennifer Anistons iconic role on "Friends" with a sweet prank.

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Jason Sudeikis pulled the best prank on co-star Aniston while filming "We're the Millers." During one scene, Sudeikis, Aniston, Emma Roberts, and Will Poulter were seated in their RV and decided to play some music. The song that came on the radio was TLC's "Waterfalls," but in the bloopers, a different track was chosen.

"I don't know how they set that up or how they had been planning it, but it took me surprise," Aniston said during an interview . "It was very sweet, very funny."

Josh Hutcherson put a fake dead body in Jennifer Lawrences bathroom.

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The "Hunger Games" films are known for their intensity, but the cast was anything but serious when they were off camera. During filming for the first movie, Hutcherson gave co-star Lawrence a huge scare when he put a fake, dead tribute body in her bathroom.

"I took a dummy, one that the tracker-jackers were supposed to have attacked, and I put it in Jennifer's bathroom, and when she opened the door, she peed her pants," Hutcherson explained during an interview in 2012 . "Or so I was told she told me later. I did not get visual confirmation on that one. I think I'm basically a five-year-old at heart."

According to Lawrence, she didn't let Hutcherson get away with his prank.

George Clooney sprayed Ryan Goslings pants with water.

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While filming the 2011 movie "The Ides of March," Clooney pranked his co-star, Ryan Gosling. During an interview with "Extra ," Gosling explained how the known prankster wet Gosling's pants with water.

"He will come up to you and tell you something very serious, and then you walk away and you realize your pants are wet," Gosling said. "He's had like, an Evian spray bottle. He's been spraying your crotch the whole time."

Amy Poehler prank-called Seth Meyers.

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"What's your favorite part of working with Amy Poehler?" Poehler asked, pretending to be a fan from New Hampshire.

Meyers didn't recognize that the person on the phone was Poehler, so he answered her question seriously.

"Amy has an incredible energy about her," Meyers said. "She's the funniest person on earth, but she makes everybody else feel really funny, because she has a really big laugh."

After Poehler revealed her true identity, Meyers was surprised.

"Oh, come on!" he said. "Here I am being earnest and sweet about you."

Seth Rogen and Jason Segel covered Charlie Hunnam in fake blood to scare director Nicholas Stoller.

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Seth Rogen and Jason Segel have starred in a considerable number of comedy movies and shows, and admitted to having some fun outside of filming. While appearing on "The Late Late Show With James Corden" in 2017 , Rogen and Segel admitted to a gory prank they pulled on "Forgetting Sarah Marshall " director Nicholas Stoller with the help of Charlie Hunnam.

According to Segel, they tried to get Stoller to drink a lot of water, that way he'd have to use the bathroom. Their plan took longer than expected and the two actors already had Hunnam lying in the bathtub covered in fake blood, but he ended up waiting at least an hour until Stroller finally had to take a trip to the bathroom.

"He went into the bathroom and we heard a scream of death because Charlie Hunnam was laying in our bathtub covered in fake blood," Segel explained.

"For a very long time," Rogen added.

Thandie Newton replaced Simon Peggs water with alcohol.

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While promoting the 2007 film "Run, Fatboy, Run," Thandie Newton pranked co-star Simon Pegg by replacing water with vodka before Pegg participated in interviews.

"He is so extremely easy to do these things to," Newton said . "At the press junket, I brought in two liters of vodka and replaced his water with it. I got him, what a sap."

Ian Somerhalder pranked "Vampire Diaries" co-star Nina Dobrev with some help from the props department.

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Ian Somerhalder had plenty of shirtless scenes over the course of "The Vampire Diaries," so he decided to have a little fun prior to filming on with Nina Dobrev. A crew member suggested that Somerhalder visit the show's "prop master" for some assistance.

The scene Somerhalder and Dobrev had to film required a reaction shot of Dobrev in character, so Somerhalder attached fake elephant ears to his thighs to surprise her.

"The first thing we see is Nina's reaction, so what if I was completely naked and we had elephant ears and double-stick tape, and I put them on each of my thighs, and ultimately, she would be staring at a very small, young elephant, Somerhalder told Entertainment Weekly . "The reaction that we got was f---ing amazing."

Tom Cruise pranked co-star Simon Pegg on the set of "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation."

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Pegg and Cruise spent five days filming a car chase sequence in Casablanca, Morocco, and Pegg admitted that after a while, sitting in a BMW and repeatedly filming the same scene was "extremely exciting, but it got very boring in between the takes."

After three days, Pegg noticed that he was feeling warmer than usual, and discovered that Cruise was secretly turning on Pegg's seat warmer when he wasn't looking.

Pegg pointed out that Cruise made sure that he stayed hydrated.

"He was keeping me alive while he was torturing me," he joked.

To get back at Cruise, Pegg secretly put a piece of black tape over the lights on Cruise's seat warmer button and turned it on, that way he wouldn't be able to see that the feature was activated.

Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin had a prank war on the set of "Me Before You."

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To get revenge, he stole all the furniture out of her dressing room and "left her possessions in a neat pile in the middle with a plant on top of it." Clarke then put a fart machine under his wheelchair that he used for filming and filled his new socks with smashed pieces of fish. Rather than carry out another prank against Clarke, Claflin chose to fool Clarke by acting offended and giving her the silent treatment.

"I think in fact that was the biggest prank me pretending I was really upset," Claflin said .

Chris Pine and Simon Pegg convinced "Star Trek: Into Darkness" cast members that they needed to wear neutron cream to protect themselves.

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While filming "Star Trek: Into Darkness," Pine and Pegg used their filming locations as an excuse to pull a practical joke on Benedict Cumberbatch and other stars from the film.

"We were working in this pretty futuristic, sci-fi itself location, and they convinced me that I had to wear neutron cream in order to protect myself from radiation," Cumberbatch explained . "I didn't just rub it in, I put it in dots around my face."

The tube was filled with normal lotion provided by the film's makeup department.

Additional behind-the-scenes footage indicated that Pegg also fooled Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Karl Urban.

Armie Hammer put fish in the trailers of his "Mirror Mirror" co-stars.

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According to "Mirror Mirror" star Lily Collins, pranking was widespread on set and Armie Hammer is guilty of pulling at least one major trick.

"Pranking was a big deal on set," Collins said . "Luckily I was never really the victim of many pranks."

Collins revealed that Hammer "put a fish in one of the dwarfs' trailers and everyone forgot about it."

"That was probably not such a great thing," she added.

James Corden surprised David Beckham with a fake statue that looked nothing like him.

The late night host also rounded up actors to play annoying fans and created a highlight video that showed Beckham missing goals, falling, and getting red cards.

When Beckham finally saw the fake statue, he called it "embarrassing" and asked for the cameras to stop filming, saying, "The only thing that's good is the hair, and that's about it."

After Corden appeared and told Beckham that it was simply a prank, he was relieved, to say the least.

Nick Jonas and John Stamos are in an ongoing prank war.

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The battle started when Nick Jonas noticed that John Stamos is a fan of the Jonas Brothers and has worn shirts with their faces in public. In response, Jonas wore a sweatshirt that featured a photo of Stamos wearing a Jonas Brothers shirt.

Stamos upped the ante by posting a photo that appears to show himself getting a tattoo of Jonas' face.

"#jobrosforlife," he captioned the image.

It's unclear if the ink is fake or real, but the Jonas Brothers were impressed.

Joe Jonas commented with eight crying-laughing emojis, while Kevin Jonas wrote, "No way!!!!"

Nick wrote, "Okay... okay...," and is likely planning his next move.

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