13 Celebrities Who Became Memes -- And How They Felt

Find out what these stars said about their memes…

Demi Lovato became a meme over a decade ago when a fan took an over-exposed cell phone photo of the singer and edited it so that she looked distorted and almost bald. After it was posted on Tumblr, the character became known as Poot, who fans joked was the singer’s long-lost twin sister who had been locked in a basement. While Demi has now embraced the meme and even dressed up like her for Halloween, she admits she was initially not a fan of the meme.

“When Poot went viral, that actually sucked because I thought that was a real picture of me,” she told Harper’s BAZAAR. “And I was like, ‘Oh, no. That’s a really bad angle.’ But Poot was photoshopped. Later, I felt better about it because I realized that wasn’t my face.”

House of Dragons stars Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy earned meme status after a conversation about their favorite drinks went viral. In an interview, Emma specifically shared that their drink of choice was a negroni sbagliato and soon after, their answer was recreated in videos thousands of times on TikTok. While the internet found the whole thing hilarious, Olivia and Emma admit that they didn’t really enjoy it. 

“I did hate it for a very long time,” Olivia told Entertainment Weekly. “I was in the pub. A woman opened the door for me, and she said with a thick Spanish accent, ‘Stunnin!’ I was just like, ‘Oh my God. Over a decade’s worth of work reduced to a single word in my lexicon.’” 

Emma added that they didn’t love it either, sharing, “I don’t have anything illuminating to say on it because it’s very hard to know how to react when you become a meme.”

In 2018, Dua Lipa went viral after her performance of “New Rules” at the BRIT Awards, which some fans viewed as lackluster. One comment on the YouTube video ended up becoming a meme, which read, “I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing!” Looking back, Dua says the whole thing was “hurtful” and “humiliating,” forcing her to take a break from the internet. 

“The thing that made me the happiest -- performing and writing songs -- was also making me really upset because people were picking everything apart that I’d been working on, and I had to learn all that in front of everyone,” Dua later told The Guardian. “In the public eye, I was figuring out who I was as an artist, as a performer. All that was happening while I was 22, 23 years old and still growing up. You have to build tough skin. You have to be resilient.”

Selena Gomez has become a meme on more than one occasion and it’s safe to say she’s not a fan. In 2023, a photo of the actress wrapped in a blanket looking into the distance deep in thought became a meme. Fans joked that it looked like a decades-old photo and could have been their “abuelita.” While most people thought the whole thing was lighthearted, Selena vowed to never become a meme again. 

“I will never be a meme again,” she shared on an Instagram story. “I’d rather sit still than be dragged for being myself. Much love.”

Millie Bobby Brown became a meme completely against her will back in 2018 when she was just 14. At the time, people began using images of the actress and adding fake quotes to make it appear that she was spreading anti-LGBTQ messages. In response, she quit social media and issued a statement while accepting an award at the  MTV Movie & TV Awards.

“Since I know there are many young people watching this -- and even for the adults, too -- they could probably use the reminder that I was taught: if you don’t have anything nice to say, just don't say it,” she said. “There should be no space in this world for bullying, and I’m not going to tolerate it, and neither should any of you.”

Jason Derulo became a meme after a photo of a man falling down the stairs at the 2015 Met Gala went viral and was alleged to be him -- even though it was someone completely different. The photo regularly resurfaces around the famed event every year and Jason admits he finds it all pretty funny. 

“There’s still people on the planet that think that I’d fall down the steps. I’ve definitely seen some messages like, ‘Are you OK?’ But yeah, every single year, a couple of times a year...it’s not even just the Met Gala anymore! It’s kind of inching its way onto other events, but it's hilarious,” he told People.

Adele once became a social media meme while attending a basketball game. Although she didn’t mean to do anything particularly funny, fans latched on to the image of the singer ignoring the camera and looking completely unimpressed while sitting courtside. Looking back, Adele says she was actually “sulking” at the time because she had asked the camera crew not to film her. 

“The people with the camera came and asked me twice. They were like: ‘Do you mind if we film you? Can we put you on the screen?’ I said: ‘Please don’t. Please don’t. I just canceled the Vegas [residency], I really don’t want to.’ They came back and they filmed me,” Adele explained. “The reason I looked like a different person was because I was sulking. Because I was like: ‘These motherf--kers have come back and are filming me against my will,’” she explained during a concert.

She continued, “I didn’t realize they were airing it on TV. I thought it was just in the room! But anyway, I just wanted to give some context, because I was ignoring, looking everywhere but in the camera, because I was very annoyed because I asked not to be filmed. But I guess I was asking for it by going.”

A photo of Kevin James from the set of King of Queens has taken on a life of its own as a meme -- but it wasn’t ever supposed to be released to the public. The image, which features Kevin humbly shrugging his shoulders on set, has been used in a wide variety of posts on social media and while Kevin says the whole thing is “so dumb,” he admits many of the memes are pretty funny. 

“The photographer was just telling me to do goofy things. He was like, ‘Smile now like you’re sexy. Now, like you’re shy.’ I got into this position like, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” he explained on The Tonight Show. “Then I said, ‘Well, please bury that one.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, no worries. That won’t come back.’”

When Chloë Grace Moretz was just a teenager, she faced an “onslaught of horrific memes,” many of which focused on her body. Out of all of them, one image where she was photoshopped to look like a character from Family Guy truly affected her struggle with body dysmorphia and her self-confidence. 

“There was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand. And this photo got manipulated into a character from Family Guy with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time,” she told Hunger mag. 

She continued, “Everyone was making fun of my body and I brought it up with someone and they were like, ‘Oh, shut the f--k up, it’s funny.’ And I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke and it’s something that I can’t change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram. It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers. And to this day, when I see that meme, it’s something very hard for me to overcome.”

A clip of Keke Palmer from an interview with Vanity Fair was made into a meme after she didn’t recognize former​​ Vice President Dick Cheney. In the video, Keke was shown a photo of the politician, to which she hilariously responded, “Who the hell is this? I hate to say it. I hope I don’t sound ridiculous. I don’t know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, and I wouldn’t know a thing. Sorry to this man.” 

Keke didn’t mind the clip going viral, even going on to make merch out of her iconic quote. She later shared that she honestly didn’t know who he was -- and is glad she didn’t. 

“I just felt bad that I didn’t know who he was because I knew it would be somebody that, maybe, everybody knew,” she said on Watch What Happens Live. “I didn’t know [but] I’m actually fine. After finding out who he is, I’m glad I didn’t know.”

Chrissy Teigen once went viral for her crying face after her husband John Legend won Best Original Song for “Glory” from the movie Selma during the 2015 Golden Globes. Through the years, the image has been used as a reaction photo and the model has since called it a “legendary moment.” 

She even shared the image on her Instagram in 2021, ,, “happy anniversary to this drunk dumbass lmao.” 

In 2010, a photo of Keanu Reeves went viral, where he could be seen eating a sandwich on a park bench and looking somber. The meme, which was dubbed “Sad Keanu,” has stuck around the internet for over a decade and even inspired a frame in his comic book BRZRKR.

“I'm just eating a sandwich, man! I was thinking! I had some stuff going on. I was hungry,” Keanu explained on The Late Show about what was going through his head at the time.

Ben Affleck is constantly becoming a meme, particularly for photos snapped by the paparazzi that show the actor looking glum. The relatable images, including one where he’s attempting to carry numerous coffees at once, have gone viral -- and Ben admits they happen so frequently because he just doesn’t care how he looks in public. 

“I think I don’t present in a very careful way. So I’ll go out and pick up the packages or deliveries and I don’t really care that people are there to take my picture,” he told GQ, later adding, “Naturally you go, like, ‘OK, maybe I’ll just wear the same outfit every single day, so the pictures won’t be distinguishable.’ Or maybe, ‘I’ll just look like a slob,’ and I’m like, nope -- then you become the sad Affleck meme spilling the coffee. Which I have to say I think is kind of funny.”