14 craziest pop culture conspiracy theories of all time

Have you heard? One of the actors who played a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz hanged himself on the set during filming, and if you look really carefully, you can see it happening live along the Yellow Brick Road?

Thankfully, this conspiracy theory is 100 percent untrue, according to Snopes.

Any woman who’s ever been pregnant can understand how vexing it is to see celebrities within days after giving birth, looking as slim and well-rested as ever.

And that must be the why there are so many theories about celebrities faking pregnancies while having “their” babies carried by surrogates.

Examples include:

• Beyonce
• Katie Holmes
• Nicole Kidman
• Janet Jackson
• Eva Mendes
• Jennifer Lopez

Let’s just assume that all these women did, in fact, carry their own children, as they have insisted.

Wuthering Heights wasn’t written by Emily Brontë, but rather her brother, Branwell Brontë?

The songs on Hole’s album, Live Through This, were actually written by Courtney Love’s deceased husband, Kurt Cobain?

The Harry Potter books weren’t written by J.K. Rowling but by a massive enterprise of ghostwriters?

No. No to this demeaning form of misogyny.

Scratch the surface of these conspiracy theories and you’ll find some very insecure men who can’t accept the valuable contributions of women.

Let’s move along—there’s nothing to see here.

The “so-and-so couldn’t have done that” brand of conspiracy is not unique to women.

Two prime examples are the persistent rumours that William Shakespeare was actually someone else and that Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t shot by Sirhan Sirhan but by a “woman in a polka dot dress.”

Could there be any truth at the heart of either of these? We can’t ask Shakespeare, but you can find Sirhan Sirhan serving out his life sentence at a correctional facility in San Diego, California.

This article first appeared on RD.com.