The year has not started off well for Charlie Sheen, who is reportedly walking away from his hit show Two and a Half Men after a suspected domestic-violence incident with estranged wife Brooke Mueller that lead to a stint in rehab. Then this week, Sheen was spotted trying to go incognito with an obviously fake mustache. The faux facial hair landed Sheen on the cover of In Touch, which accused the actor of stepping out on his wife with a woman named Angelina Tracy earlier this week. But Sheen’s publicist Stan Rosenfield said he was just having a little fun… sans female companion. “The woman in question is the sister of one of Sheen’s campmates and Sheen was only responding to a 12th-step call,” Rosenfield told People of his client’s recovery program outreach efforts. “Since Sheen knew he was being followed and how this would look, he wore the mustache in a tongue-in-cheek disguise gesture.”
After her first post-prison interview on CNN’s Larry King Live in June 2007, celebutante Paris Hilton thought she deserved a Hawaiian vacation after being questioned about everything from strip searches to bologna sandwiches behind bars. She arrived in Maui wearing a straw hat, sunglasses, and trading in her signature platinum stick-straight locks for a far darker wig. But all it did was make her look more like younger sister Nicky. As the blogger behind The Superficial said, “She doesn’t quite realize it takes more than changing your hair color to be taken seriously.”
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Before Michael Jackson died last summer, he made sure no one got a good look at him or his children during most of their public outings. Whether they were hidden behind burqas, scarves, sunglasses, or decorative masks—as on this occasion, just months before his death—or any combination, Michael Jackson was usually seen in public in disguise, particularly when it came to his three children, Prince, Paris, and Blanket.
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The pop princess’ hair has always grabbed attention—whether in braided pigtails, getting buzzed off, or tangled in the decade’s most talked about weave. But in the fall of 2007, Britney Spears surrendered to the Los Angeles Police Department in connection with two minor driving offenses while wearing a hot pink bob. Though she was said to have been photographed and fingerprinted, the magenta mug shot was not released.
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At the 1999 MTV Movie Awards, Jim Carrey stepped on stage with a crocheted top, full-fledged beard, frizzy hair, cigarette in hand, and Lennon-esque sunglasses to accept his award for Best Male Performance for his role in The Truman Show. Though the How the Grinch Stole Christmas star is no stranger to disguises, the laid-back character seemed to be quite the stretch as he sang on stage to the audience’s amusement.
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The paparazzi were clearly delighted when singer Katy Perry emerged from Miami International Airport with a giant doughnut pillow covering her face in August 2009. Seemingly slightly loopy from her flight from New York, the quirky Perry took to Twitter to explain. “Bought GIANT doughnut pillow at @kidrobot NYC and it wouldn’t fit in any of my bags,” she tweeted about the plush food disguise. “When gettin off plane it was the best paparazzi shield.”
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In August 2009, Neil Diamond stepped away from the studio to attend a L.A. Lakers game courtside next to Entourage actor Jeremy Piven. Clearly in a mood to change up the look fans have associated with him since the ‘70s, Diamond donned a mustache that didn’t exactly cooperate throughout the basketball outing. “I look to my right and I realize, indeed, Neil Diamond had a fake mustache on and... it was almost all the way off his face,” Piven later told reporters. “[I said], ‘Excuse me Mr. Diamond, your mustache is falling off.' I don’t know any other way to say it. So he ended up ripping the rest of it off.” The “Sweet Caroline” singer himself was frustrated by the caterpillar crawling on his upper lip. “Loved the Lakers game but that mustache drove me nuts,” he tweeted.
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Typically svelte Keira Knightley plumped up for her 21st birthday party in March 2006 when she disguised herself with a pig mask to leave the roaring ‘20s-themed affair at London nightclub Paper. But this is likely the closest thing the public will ever see to Knightley pigging out. “[A doctor] told me that for someone of my body type to get to a [European] size 12, I would have to eat a lot of sh-- food, stop exercising, and drink loads,” she told People the following year. “But I don’t want to have to go ‘round eating crap and being really unhealthy in order for people to stop having a go at me.”
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When her ex, Sir Paul McCartney, was photographed with his new brunette girlfriend Nancy Shevell on vacation in April 2008, Heather Mills decided to hide her blond locks beneath a black bob. While The Sun claimed she bore resemblance to Yoko Ono, Mills was likely just trying to give her public image a makeover after her divorce from the acclaimed rocker left her looking anything but favorable.
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It’s no secret Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are fans of wild animals—they named their son Bronx Mowgli, after The Jungle Book’s protagonist. But the pop punkers took their fondness to a new level when Wentz went for a frightening gorilla mask while Simpson donned an old lady disguise when the two were walking around a chilly New York City this past January. Though they may have been trying to escape the paparazzi, the young couple seemingly brought more attention to themselves than detracted from it.
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In an effort to escape the photographers trailing him on Paris’ famous shopping strip on Rue Saint-Honoré, Dustin Hoffman decided to leave French handbag shop Texier with two additions—a black crossbody bag and a paper one with two holes to place over his head in October 2006. Though one hole appeared to be better suited for his nose, the Rain Man star did succeed at giving Texier some free press for the day. Or maybe he just didn’t want people to know he bought a man purse.
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