20 Outrageously Bizarre Lies That People Were Told
People answer “what’s the most outrageous lie [they]’ve ever been told”
Independently testedUnbiased Demilked scoreFree to implementTools included
To say that one never lies is in itself a lie. As humans, we tend to resort to many white lies to get through life. According to studies, by the time humans turn 3 years of age, we have told our first lie.
While lying is never the answer and we should all aspire to uphold the truth at all costs, sadly this is not always the case. So what are some of the more egregious lies we’ve been told? Our online community members responded and based on some of these stories we’d all best remember that our words have power and our lies can affect someone's life in huge ways so let's all take responsibility for our words and remember that honesty, is the best policy.
My late older sis told me I was adopted and showed me paperwork to prove it. Being a teen, I didn't know it was handily forged fakery courtesy of some forms her friend got somehow. I was devastated for weeks. Decades later, some still think I was adopted. I wasn't. DNA, I'm 100% from the same parents as her. I even heard "But she's not your real sister/dad" at funerals. FYI, if I *had* been adopted, that'd still be a horrible thing to do, but since I wasn't?
My boyfriend's mom said she had cancer. She lost a bunch of weight (she was morbidly obese & found a Dr. Feel Good to give her hella powerful drugs). Had her husband and son at her beck and call 24/7 because she “needed help” and was SO weak and sick. Gaslit the whole town, had everyone giving her attention, flowers, home-cooked meals, etc. My boyfriend and I could never go out (“what if she fell?!) but she loved having us both there to listen to her monologues. This went on for 2 years! We were dumb teenagers, but shouldn’t the adults have noticed something wasn’t right? They finally did, it all came out (suprise! No cancer!) and my boyfriend had to leave town because of the shame. (I went with him- happily married for 40 years) We tried to forgive her when our kids came along. She started the same old stuff, and we finally completely cut her off.
So, big, big, biiiiig lies.
As a child, my parents kept telling me that I was worthless, stupid, and lazy; that I didn't deserve anything, and that nothing good would become of me. That they were ashamed of me, and that they had spent too much on my upbringing.
Years later - I moved away from my toxic family and started going to therapy. Today I live in my own apartment, I got promoted several times at work, I love my job, I got to travel through the whole of Europe, and I can afford almost everything they had told me that I "didn't deserve". And most important - I found my inner peace.
"I’m not cheating on you and never would." Said by my now ex-husband. Backstory: we were married for 9 years, together for 11, and had 2 daughters together. We had a somewhat open relationship to avoid cheating as he had a reputation from his past. There were many rules but the main one was, you don’t do anything behind the other's back. Not only did he cheat behind my back but he brought her into my home to help me with the kids after a surgery I had as my ex was an over-the-road trucker and couldn’t be there with me. She stole my phone while I was sleeping and text herself from it making it look like I was selling her my pain meds from the surgery. In the end, I didn’t get in any trouble as I still had the pills I was supposedly selling but she sure tried multiple things to have me put in prison so she could take over my role (her words). Karma got her in the end as she was charged with perjury and soliciting an officer.
"You're fat enough to look like you gave birth to 3 children"
I was 12 when my dad said this. Height 148cm and 50kg. I starved myself when he said that and got very bad stomach issues which I'm still suffering with. He said this because I was VERY skinny as a kid and gained weight at 12. I GAINED WEIGHT FROM MY GROWTH SPURT DURING PUBERTY. My father was ignorant and didn't know this so he ended up hurting my feelings so badly that even though I'm 17 now I still remember EACH AND EVERY hurtful word he said to me. To this day, I'm uncomfortable shopping for clothes because I get reminded of those days. I'm now 164cm tall at 55.7 kg and although I'm happy with my body I still cry when I remember his words. Be careful, everyone! Words really do matter! Here are some things he said:
I was eating chocolate because of period cramps when he said "look at you, you're eating all the time. Girls your age are gorgeous at 5'5 and maintaining a healthy weight. You look like a troll";
When I was sleeping, he told me that "my belly is so big it looks like it was laying beside me."
And when I confronted him about this and told him this was why I starved myself, he told me he never said that and got mad and told me to stop making up lies about him... He told me this was why everyone hates me. Ever since then, my relationship with my father has never been the same. The most outrageous lie was when he told me to stop making this up (my mom didn't know about this till then and she was there at the time so he didn't want to make himself look bad). Sorry for the essay, folks, just needed to get that out.
That she didn’t know how all the quarterly reports got into a coworker’s rarely used extra file cabinet because she sent them out to the clients when she said she did, and then when she said she had no idea how the petty cash box she was responsible for, ended up under another coworker’s desk in the trash can - EMPTY. Or when she told the arbitrator during her attempt to fight her termination that her grandmother had died which made her miss work for two weeks but was not able to call into work because she was too upset.
My ex-husband told me that his family had connections with the mafia and that if I ever tried to leave him that he would disappear with our son and I would never see them again. I left him and he didn't disappear.
After we divorced he told my son that he was on an experimental komodo dragon treatment for his necrotic pancreatitis and he only had 6 months to live. This was several years ago. He is still alive.
Everything that comes out of my sister's mouth is a lie, I swear, these are some of the things she has said: she can see dead people, she was abducted by aliens, she's in a choir, and the churches are fighting over her to join their choir, her kids are autistic and have Asperger's, they're not, FYI, never even seen a doctor about it, omg she has had every ailment going. One time she said she took a drug which I used to do when I was a dumb kid and you can't eat on it, so she says this then says I'm starving, that she's on first-name terms with people from BAFTA, omg the list is endless, I just shake my head lol.
That it’s “hamburger” in my spaghetti. It was not. It was an octopus. For some reason, my dad didn’t think we’d know the difference if he just said it was hamburger.
When I was in elementary school, the teachers told us that if we stepped on the grass, the fire alarm would trip. Me being the curious idiot I was, I tried it and stepped on said grass.
The fire alarm wasn't tripped because its grass. My guess is they didn't wanna clean grass blades.
That your "permanent record" in primary school will matter and follow you forever.
That my little brother gets treated the same way I did at his age- I had a Kindle and he currently uses a Playstation or Nintendo, a television, and a Kindle (he's broken two Kindles in the past, and the one he uses right now is actually taken from my older bro), and an iPad daily, he's on an iPad rn if you were wondering. He also isn't expected to do anything and leaves messes everywhere, and biting, hitting, and screaming are okay because he doesn't know any better.
You won't always have a calculator on you, absolutely bs.
That the ultra-religious will go to heaven, and the rest of the world will burn.
That LGBTQ+ people are 'sinful' and 'an abomination'.
That the Bible was 100% correct.
It's a 2,000+-year-old book. Translated from many different languages. That says that women are inferior, and it's 'right to own slaves'.
"No daddy, I didn't eat your cake".
My then-3-year-old daughter with wide, innocent eyes betrayed by about a half-pound of chocolate cream smeared around her face.
You can get rich as a "consultant" for an MLM.
I love you. (The lie that always gets me...)
I respect you.
I'll pay you back.
I'd never cheat on you.
Will you marry me?
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
I'm sorry, I'll never do it again.
I'll never hurt you.
I just want to see you happy.
I was just drunk...
There's nothing going on between us.
That person doesn't mean anything to me.
You can trust me.
If you work hard, you can be or do anything. It's really not true. That isn't something I'm saying because I think anything is owed to me. I think it's just a dangerous thing to say to kids who don't understand that there's a fine print.
There are a specific set of circumstances that have to happen in order for that dream to come true and it's possible that no matter how hard you work you might not get there. There's also a narrative on Instagram, Facebook et al of people who live these 'amazing' lives that you will never be able to keep up with or live up to or afford. It's causing people to build resentment because they see some influencer or celebrity with little to no talent and they then question, 'why can't I be that? Why can't I be like them?' But a lot of it is a lie.
With some things, it's about who you know. With others it's about having the capital to be able to do it, so for instance, you may be able to take an unpaid internship for a year at your dream company, but only if you can afford to do that. You need to have someone who can take care of you for that year or someone's couch you can sleep on. Some people don't have that option. Some people have to work from the minute they turn 16 and can't afford to take time off even with some savings.
A lot of rich people have their companies handed to them because it's in the family. So they get the benefit of great schooling and they start training for that business as soon as possible. They also have their rent paid for having a trust fund while they do that. They also get there without ever having to start at the bottom, or only have to do that for a very short time to 'save face'. At 26 they take over a million-dollar company. No matter how hard that person works, they still had astounding advantages that you and I will never have and if they had to work 1 week in one of our jobs they'd kill themselves. But they are often the first ones to blame poor people for their own lot in life. They forget about everything they got to skip over on their way to where they are.
You're constantly made to feel like you're somehow lesser because you didn't have the same opportunities.
Don't get me wrong, some people really do start from nothing and work hard to build an incredible life but I would bet that no one gets there alone, and not without the help of some kind and some luck that simply might not be available to you. Or the dream you have is simply not within reach for you because of other circumstances in your life.
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."
Bald guys never get dates!
#1
My late older sis told me I was adopted and showed me paperwork to prove it. Being a teen, I didn't know it was handily forged fakery courtesy of some forms her friend got somehow. I was devastated for weeks. Decades later, some still think I was adopted. I wasn't. DNA, I'm 100% from the same parents as her. I even heard "But she's not your real sister/dad" at funerals. FYI, if I *had* been adopted, that'd still be a horrible thing to do, but since I wasn't?
#2
My boyfriend's mom said she had cancer. She lost a bunch of weight (she was morbidly obese & found a Dr. Feel Good to give her hella powerful drugs). Had her husband and son at her beck and call 24/7 because she “needed help” and was SO weak and sick. Gaslit the whole town, had everyone giving her attention, flowers, home-cooked meals, etc. My boyfriend and I could never go out (“what if she fell?!) but she loved having us both there to listen to her monologues. This went on for 2 years! We were dumb teenagers, but shouldn’t the adults have noticed something wasn’t right? They finally did, it all came out (suprise! No cancer!) and my boyfriend had to leave town because of the shame. (I went with him- happily married for 40 years) We tried to forgive her when our kids came along. She started the same old stuff, and we finally completely cut her off.
So, big, big, biiiiig lies.
#3
As a child, my parents kept telling me that I was worthless, stupid, and lazy; that I didn't deserve anything, and that nothing good would become of me. That they were ashamed of me, and that they had spent too much on my upbringing.
Years later - I moved away from my toxic family and started going to therapy. Today I live in my own apartment, I got promoted several times at work, I love my job, I got to travel through the whole of Europe, and I can afford almost everything they had told me that I "didn't deserve". And most important - I found my inner peace.
#4
"I’m not cheating on you and never would." Said by my now ex-husband. Backstory: we were married for 9 years, together for 11, and had 2 daughters together. We had a somewhat open relationship to avoid cheating as he had a reputation from his past. There were many rules but the main one was, you don’t do anything behind the other's back. Not only did he cheat behind my back but he brought her into my home to help me with the kids after a surgery I had as my ex was an over-the-road trucker and couldn’t be there with me. She stole my phone while I was sleeping and text herself from it making it look like I was selling her my pain meds from the surgery. In the end, I didn’t get in any trouble as I still had the pills I was supposedly selling but she sure tried multiple things to have me put in prison so she could take over my role (her words). Karma got her in the end as she was charged with perjury and soliciting an officer.
#5
"You're fat enough to look like you gave birth to 3 children"
I was 12 when my dad said this. Height 148cm and 50kg. I starved myself when he said that and got very bad stomach issues which I'm still suffering with. He said this because I was VERY skinny as a kid and gained weight at 12. I GAINED WEIGHT FROM MY GROWTH SPURT DURING PUBERTY. My father was ignorant and didn't know this so he ended up hurting my feelings so badly that even though I'm 17 now I still remember EACH AND EVERY hurtful word he said to me. To this day, I'm uncomfortable shopping for clothes because I get reminded of those days. I'm now 164cm tall at 55.7 kg and although I'm happy with my body I still cry when I remember his words. Be careful, everyone! Words really do matter! Here are some things he said:
I was eating chocolate because of period cramps when he said "look at you, you're eating all the time. Girls your age are gorgeous at 5'5 and maintaining a healthy weight. You look like a troll";
When I was sleeping, he told me that "my belly is so big it looks like it was laying beside me."
And when I confronted him about this and told him this was why I starved myself, he told me he never said that and got mad and told me to stop making up lies about him... He told me this was why everyone hates me. Ever since then, my relationship with my father has never been the same. The most outrageous lie was when he told me to stop making this up (my mom didn't know about this till then and she was there at the time so he didn't want to make himself look bad). Sorry for the essay, folks, just needed to get that out.
#6
That she didn’t know how all the quarterly reports got into a coworker’s rarely used extra file cabinet because she sent them out to the clients when she said she did, and then when she said she had no idea how the petty cash box she was responsible for, ended up under another coworker’s desk in the trash can - EMPTY. Or when she told the arbitrator during her attempt to fight her termination that her grandmother had died which made her miss work for two weeks but was not able to call into work because she was too upset.
#7
My ex-husband told me that his family had connections with the mafia and that if I ever tried to leave him that he would disappear with our son and I would never see them again. I left him and he didn't disappear.
After we divorced he told my son that he was on an experimental komodo dragon treatment for his necrotic pancreatitis and he only had 6 months to live. This was several years ago. He is still alive.
#8
Everything that comes out of my sister's mouth is a lie, I swear, these are some of the things she has said: she can see dead people, she was abducted by aliens, she's in a choir, and the churches are fighting over her to join their choir, her kids are autistic and have Asperger's, they're not, FYI, never even seen a doctor about it, omg she has had every ailment going. One time she said she took a drug which I used to do when I was a dumb kid and you can't eat on it, so she says this then says I'm starving, that she's on first-name terms with people from BAFTA, omg the list is endless, I just shake my head lol.
#9
That it’s “hamburger” in my spaghetti. It was not. It was an octopus. For some reason, my dad didn’t think we’d know the difference if he just said it was hamburger.
#10
When I was in elementary school, the teachers told us that if we stepped on the grass, the fire alarm would trip. Me being the curious idiot I was, I tried it and stepped on said grass.
The fire alarm wasn't tripped because its grass. My guess is they didn't wanna clean grass blades.
#11
That your "permanent record" in primary school will matter and follow you forever.
#12
That my little brother gets treated the same way I did at his age- I had a Kindle and he currently uses a Playstation or Nintendo, a television, and a Kindle (he's broken two Kindles in the past, and the one he uses right now is actually taken from my older bro), and an iPad daily, he's on an iPad rn if you were wondering. He also isn't expected to do anything and leaves messes everywhere, and biting, hitting, and screaming are okay because he doesn't know any better.
#13
You won't always have a calculator on you, absolutely bs.
#14
That the ultra-religious will go to heaven, and the rest of the world will burn.
That LGBTQ+ people are 'sinful' and 'an abomination'.
That the Bible was 100% correct.
It's a 2,000+-year-old book. Translated from many different languages. That says that women are inferior, and it's 'right to own slaves'.
#15
"No daddy, I didn't eat your cake".
My then-3-year-old daughter with wide, innocent eyes betrayed by about a half-pound of chocolate cream smeared around her face.
#16
You can get rich as a "consultant" for an MLM.
#17
I love you. (The lie that always gets me...)
I respect you.
I'll pay you back.
I'd never cheat on you.
Will you marry me?
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
I'm sorry, I'll never do it again.
I'll never hurt you.
I just want to see you happy.
I was just drunk...
There's nothing going on between us.
That person doesn't mean anything to me.
You can trust me.
#18
If you work hard, you can be or do anything. It's really not true. That isn't something I'm saying because I think anything is owed to me. I think it's just a dangerous thing to say to kids who don't understand that there's a fine print.
There are a specific set of circumstances that have to happen in order for that dream to come true and it's possible that no matter how hard you work you might not get there. There's also a narrative on Instagram, Facebook et al of people who live these 'amazing' lives that you will never be able to keep up with or live up to or afford. It's causing people to build resentment because they see some influencer or celebrity with little to no talent and they then question, 'why can't I be that? Why can't I be like them?' But a lot of it is a lie.
With some things, it's about who you know. With others it's about having the capital to be able to do it, so for instance, you may be able to take an unpaid internship for a year at your dream company, but only if you can afford to do that. You need to have someone who can take care of you for that year or someone's couch you can sleep on. Some people don't have that option. Some people have to work from the minute they turn 16 and can't afford to take time off even with some savings.
A lot of rich people have their companies handed to them because it's in the family. So they get the benefit of great schooling and they start training for that business as soon as possible. They also have their rent paid for having a trust fund while they do that. They also get there without ever having to start at the bottom, or only have to do that for a very short time to 'save face'. At 26 they take over a million-dollar company. No matter how hard that person works, they still had astounding advantages that you and I will never have and if they had to work 1 week in one of our jobs they'd kill themselves. But they are often the first ones to blame poor people for their own lot in life. They forget about everything they got to skip over on their way to where they are.
You're constantly made to feel like you're somehow lesser because you didn't have the same opportunities.
Don't get me wrong, some people really do start from nothing and work hard to build an incredible life but I would bet that no one gets there alone, and not without the help of some kind and some luck that simply might not be available to you. Or the dream you have is simply not within reach for you because of other circumstances in your life.
#19
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."
#20
Bald guys never get dates!DE
Written by
Demilked Editorial
SaaS Review Specialist · Demilked
With 5+ years in the creator, entertainment, and publishing spaces, Demilked shortlists, reviews, and ranks leading tools that actually make your life easier.