The Best Celebrity Pranks of All Time: The Kardashians, Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart and More

Credit: ABC/Randy Holmes; Todd Owyoung/NBC

The Best Celebrity Pranks of All Time: The Kardashians, Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart and More

Tinseltown is up to some tricks! Though Hollywood can be a serious business, celebrities often share their light-hearted sides — and what better way to prove their comedic nuance than with practical jokes at the expense of others? The Kardashian-Jenner family have pulled a number of pranks on each other over the years, but perhaps none more iconic than Scott Disick’s Todd Kraines gag, in which he pretends to be a friend of the family on phone calls with Kris Jenner. The Flip It Like Disick alum’s high-pitched “imitation” of Kraines — and the momager’s reaction — never failed to leave the family in hysterics. While Disick's prank calls are legendary in the Kardashian family and in the Kardashian fandom, Jenner once received an entirely different call based on an entirely different (and much more serious) prank. While playing "Truth or Dare" with Kourtney Kardashian, Kendall Jenner called their mom and pretended that she just found out she was pregnant. Kris, who believed her daughter immediately, even told her second-youngest that she dreamt about Kendall’s supposed pregnancy the night before. (Kim Kardashian, on the other hand, had a much stronger reaction to the model’s alleged news when Kendall played the same prank several years prior on Khloé Kardashian’s short-lived talk show, Kocktails With Khloé, getting upset and stressed about the situation.) [jwplayer 7fw9WyPa-zhNYySv2] Meanwhile, no celebrity prank would be complete without the masters: Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres, for her part, has been playfully scaring stars for decades on her eponymous talk show: Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Diddy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anne Hathaway and many more have all fell victim to her pop-out surprises. When she’s not frightening her A-list guests, the Finding Dory star has them go out and embarrass themselves in front of unsuspecting people. (“Dennis Quaid is here!” is a classic.) Kutcher, whose MTV series Punk’d was a staple in the early 2000s, terrified countless celebrities throughout his stint as host, including Travis Barker, Mandy Moore, The Rock, Lindsay Lohan, Missy Elliott and many more. The most memorable, however, were his practical jokes on Justin Timberlake (who cried when he thought all of his belongings were being seized by the government) and Drake (who visibly panicked when he thought he was involved in an earthquake). However, not all the stars were laughing. Kutcher didn't air pranks that celebrities didn't approve. David Spade and Miley Cyrus were Punk'd in two separate stunts, but neither allowed MTV to air the clips. Kutcher said he deleted any footage that stars didn't want to be seen. “Any celebrity that asked us to destroy the tape, I destroyed the tape,” he told Esquire in January 2023. “Every single f--king last one.” Scroll down to see these and more of the best celebrity pranks over the years:

Credit: ABC/Randy Holmes; Todd Owyoung/NBC

Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Swap Late-Night Shows

In honor of April Fools’ Day in 2022, the two comedians traded places and hosted one another’s late-night shows. Kimmel took Fallon’s place at the Tonight Show desk in New York, while Fallon took over Jimmy Kimmel Live! in California.

“Hi, I’m Jimmy,” Fallon joked in his monologue on the ABC show. “Settle down, you’re going to offend the other Jimmy. … I love that we did this — I can’t believe we pulled it off. Jimmy and I wanted to have some fun with people mixing us up all the time. I couldn’t be mistaken for a better guy.” 

Credit: YouTube (2)

Adele Pranks Unsuspecting Adele Impersonators

The “Someone Like You” singer took her song title to heart in 2015 when she pretended to be an Adele impersonator named Jenny just trying to fit in with the rest of the group of impersonators at a BBC event. Despite the fact that the actual Adele — disguised in prosthetics and using a deep voice — was talking to them throughout the show, the women didn’t realize it was her until she started singing — and they started crying.

Credit: YouTube; Inset: Shutterstock

Justin Timberlake’s Cars and More Get ‘Repossessed’ on ‘Punk’d’

Timberlake's episode of Punk’d is historic for good reason: The “Cry Me a River” singer actually shed some tears himself, visibly upset over the idea that government employees (including one played by the then-relatively unknown Dax Shepard were removing all of his belongings from his home. The former ‘Nsync star later revealed that the reason he cried during the episode was because he was high.

Credit: YouTube; Inset: Shutterstock

Scott Disick's Todd Kraines Prank on Kris Jenner

Disick’s impersonation of the Kardashian's family friend was so hilarious that the reality star did it multiple times throughout the run of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. “Auntie Kris, it’s me! It’s Todd Kraines!” he told Kris over the phone intermittently over several years. The real Todd Kraines later got in on the joke with Disick, showing up to a family ski trip saying the father of three’s exact lines.

Credit: YouTube

Dennis Quaid Pranks Starbucks Barista and Customers on 'Ellen'

One of DeGeneres’ best pranks was when she enlisted Dennis Quaid to walk into the Starbucks on the studio lot, announce his presence and repeatedly refer to himself in the third person. “Dennis Quaid is here!” the Parent Trap actor yelled upon entering the coffee shop. He even had the barista sing Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O!” with him before confessing the whole thing was a joke.

Credit: YouTube; Inset: Shutterstock

Kevin Hart Puts Nick Cannon's Real Cell Phone Number on Multiple Billboards

Hart and fellow comedian Cannon were involved in a massive prank war in 2021, beginning with the Wild N’ Out host sending the Jumanji star a llama for his birthday. To retaliate, after news broke that Cannon was expecting his seventh child, Hart put up billboards in Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta that read, “If you want any advice on fatherhood, please call my best friend Nick Cannon,” complete with the Masked Singer host’s actual phone number. The jokes didn’t end there, as Cannon later plastered his face on the side of Hart's jet and the Scary Movie 3 actor sent his pal a vending machine full of condoms for Valentine’s Day 2022.

Credit: YouTube

Ashton Kutcher Makes Drake Believe There's an Earthquake on 'Punk'd'

On his way to meet Barack Obama, the “Best I Ever Had” rapper gets trapped in an earthquake — or so he thought. As the parking lot appears to shake and explode all around him, Drake delves deeper and deeper into panic mode: cursing, calling his mom and attempting to fathom what’s happening.

Credit: YouTube

Justin Bieber Pranks 'Ellen' Guests in the Bathroom

While Bieber has been both the prankster and the one getting pranked on Ellen, he was in the driver’s seat the time he and the talk show host cooked up an idea to scare unsuspecting guests on their way to the bathroom. The “Ghost of You” singer hid in the corner of a bathroom stall until each person would go in. Then he would pop out and startle them twice, as they were initially frightened by the unexpected person — and then taken aback that that person was Bieber himself.

Credit: Youtube; Inset: Shutterstock

Kendall Fakes a Pregnancy to Kim and Kris

After calling Kim to pretend she was pregnant on "Kocktails With Khloé," Kendall was in for an earful from the SKIMS founder.

“I’m not the one to talk to, because I have like the worst experience and I’m so fresh off of the worst birthing experience,” the KKW Beauty mogul started. “I mean, today is not the day cause I literally would be a bit more negative cause I’m on one hour of sleep cause North was up all night and I was feeding [Saint] every two seconds and literally, my day has been like, so crazy and I’ve had no sleep and I want to like, die.”

She then told Kendall, “I’ll bring my 30 kids and you can babysit for two seconds to see how you feel.” Kendall also told Kris that the two pregnancy tests she supposedly took “came back positive.”

For her part, when Kendall played the same prank with Kourtney later on, Kris handled it all in stride and seemed to be excited for the 818 Tequila founder. "That’s so weird you just told me this because I dreamed about this last night,” the momager replied. “I’ll put on my clothes and get over there. Well, I’ll tell you, Kendall; you have to do whatever your heart tells you to do. I think it’s great news, but I’m your mom.”

Upon finding out it was a prank, Kris joked, “Oh f--k. Oh brother, I’ll go put the champagne back on ice.”

Credit: YouTube

Nickelodeon Producer Pranks One Direction, Pretends She's Going into Labor

In 2012, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson got in on a prank with Nickelodeon to trick the rest of One Direction (Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Liam Payne) that their pregnant producer was going into labor. While Horan seemed unsure of what to do in the situation, Payne called the woman’s husband and Styles held her hand and did breathing exercises with her.