Is it possible to pull a good celebrity prank in such an absurd time — one in which Mussolini’s granddaughter is feuding with Jim Carrey and one of the stars of Full House is facing fraud charges for bribing her daughter’s way into college? Justin Bieber certainly tried, devoting two full on-grid Instagram posts to convincing the world that his wife Hailey was expecting a child.
And for a while, it was hard to tell if Bieber’s pregnancy posts were a prank or an ill-timed announcement. Is Hailey Baldwin really pregnant? Everyone was dying to know.
An April 1 pregnancy reveal would be a bit wild, but this is Justin Bieber we’re talking about. He’s known for being unpredictable: his rapid engagement, a clothing line simply named Drew, his public serenades of “Sexual Healing.” Anything is possible.
So at first, when he posted a photo of a sonogram to his Instagram with no caption, it was easy to believe that it was a gestating Bieber baby. The sonogram clearly displays a human fetus.
In a follow-up post, he shared a photo of Hailey surrounded by two people who seemed to be medical professionals. Nothing confirms a pregnancy like a man in surgical gloves gripping the knees of a woman on her back.
Upon closer observation, however, the whole announcement falls apart. The sonogram is dated February 2, 2012, and seems to have been taken from the Wikipedia page for “ultrasound.” Then there’s the fact that the IV in the second post isn’t attached to Hailey’s arm.
Within an hour of his first prank post, Justin came forward as a trickster. “Wait omg is that a,,, APRIL FOOLS,” he wrote. It’s not a baby! It is … a pixelated Photoshop of a puppy.
The “gotcha” post clearly means they will not be having a baby (right now), but might also mean they are getting a puppy? Or not? Guess we will have to wait and see.
