All of these viral news stories were hoaxes by Joe Lycett

Joe Lycett has revealed four false stories that he planted in UK media recently.

The comedian, who is well-known for media stunts, returned to screens over the weekend for the second series of his Channel 4 show Late Night Lycett.

Having previously teased that he had planted a number of news hoaxes, Lycett joked on Friday’s (April 12) show: “I wanted to take up space that [the media] would otherwise use to spread hate, misery and pictures of Amanda Holden.”

The star then disclosed the stories in question, many of which were covered across sites including the BBC and Sky News.

They were a Birmingham five-a-side footballer having a bruise that resembled Prince Harry, H from Steps getting a statue in his honour in his hometown of Cowbridge, research saying men from Birmingham have the longest penises, and a supposed Banksy mural of The Wizard of Oz‘s Dorothy in Birmingham.

Opening up about being part of the hoax, H later told BBC Wales: “I’m great friends with Joe and he had this idea that he wanted to create fun fake news to deflect away from all of the bad fake news – and it worked! And a lot of these stories have gone unnoticed – this one did for a long time.”

He added: “I love that Joe has put this on a national platform, when there is so much hatred and we can shine a little light on some joy and something funny. It was the most ridiculous but people bought it, I had to text my mother and go mum just to let you know this is gonna happen, and she said ‘I will say nothing’.”

Gosh!! #IsThisJoe? #ThisIsJoe! https://t.co/Snp93DVFp8

— Joe Lycett (@joelycett) April 12, 2024

Last year, Lycett pranked fans after teasing the release of a supposed podcast called ‘Turdcast’, which was actually a stunt to promote his Joe Lycett vs Poo documentary that looks at the UK’s sewage spill problem.

In 2022, Lycett threatened to shred £10k in an effort to push David Beckham to stop working with Qatar during the World Cup amid its homophobic policies. He ended up supposedly shredding the money when Beckham didn’t do so, though Lycett later revealed the shredding was fake and instead donated the cash to charity.

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