Robert Pattinson recalls lying on TV about seeing a clown die as a kid

Even Robert Pattinson is weirded out by his old interview habits. 

Across his two decades of fame, the Mickey 17 star has garnered quite the reputation for being delightfully strange — and even lying — while promoting his films. In a new chat with The New York Times‘ T magazine, Pattinson described revisiting one of his crazier fabricated anecdotes, and he was pretty alarmed by what he saw.

The clip in question dates back to 2011, when Pattinson was promoting the circus-set drama Water for Elephants on Today and kicked off the conversation by revealing that his own childhood circus trip was ruined when he saw a clown die in a horrific car explosion. Which was a lie.

“There was absolutely no hesitation at all [in my voice],” Pattinson said, reflecting on the TV clip. “I’m like, ‘What on Earth? Are you possessed?'”

But the truth doesn’t involve possession — Pattinson was just bored. He recalled that at the time, hot off his Harry Potter and Twilight success, “The only thing people would ever ask me about was being famous,” adding, “You go into, like, a fugue state.”

Pattinson indeed looked deadly serious when he told the story on live TV. “His little car exploded,” he deadpanned. “The joke car exploded on him.” 

At the time, a skeptical Matt Lauer pressed him further — and gave him an out — asking, “Are you being serious right now?” But Pattinson only doubled down on the lie. 

“Yeah,” he insisted. “My parents had to — everybody ran out. It was terrifying. It was the only time I’ve ever been to the circus.”

It wasn’t until the German premiere of the film that Pattinson admitted he actually “made the whole thing up.”

Other lies Pattinson has told over the years include claiming he doesn’t “really see the point in washing [his] hair,” that he was once a women’s hand model, and that he dated his stalker, only to bore her away with his problems. He’s also been known to discuss the benefits of erotic spitting and once taught a journalist his secret recipe for microwave pasta, which involved Corn Flakes, nine packs of pre-sliced cheese, “any sauce,” and lots of sugar.

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Pattinson previously reflected on why his interviews have veered into such kooky territory in 2019 during a conversation with his The Lighthouse costar Willem Dafoe.

“I definitely do get a certain high from it,” Pattinson told Dafoe for Interview magazine. “There’s a little gremlin inside of me that thinks, ‘Just say something shocking. You’re only here for a few minutes, say something terrible.’ There’s a kind of perverse glee I get from that. But I’ve given my publicist a number of heart attacks.”

He added that if nothing else, the lies give him something to say. “I’m definitely not good at staying on all the talking points and actually selling a movie,” he said. “I see loads of actors who are really great at that, but I just seem absolutely incapable of doing it. I feel so embarrassed, because I don’t even know if the audience is going to like the movie. You can talk about your craft, but if the audience sees it and they’re like, ‘Well, that was shit,’ then it doesn’t matter how you got there.”