Fact Check: Why Bruce Willis Is NOT Moving to St. Charles
Bruce Willis is not moving to St. Charles, IL.
At least, as far as we know.
A lot of folks have pointed out and shared the Facebook post of an online article by “KM 8 News” with the headline “Bruce Willis Explains Why He’s Moving to St. Charles, Illinois.”
The article quotes Willis as saying a lot of nice things about St. Charles and the folks who live there.
“I’m just tired of the L.A. lifestyle and I feel like, at this point in my life, I’d rather just live in a place full of real, genuine people. I’ve been to St. Charles, Illinois, a couple of times over the years and the people there are real… they’re genuine, and yeah every community has its problems but the people there are good, decent people and they care about their community. Those are the things I find most important in deciding where to live,” Willis allegedly says in the KM 8 story.
The only problem is, it’s pure fantasy.
A quick Internet search shows a “KUPR 7 News” post with almost the exact wording saying why Bruce is moving to Youngstown, OH. Another by “KNP 7 News” reports that Willis is happily relocating to Arlington, TX.
You can also find out on KM8 why Will Farrell is moving to Albany, NY.
The fact-check website Snopes.com explains that around Feb. 28, 2016, it began receiving large volumes of emails asking whether Famous Person A was in fact moving to Small Town B in the U.S. or Canada.
“The queries appeared out of nowhere at around the same time, as if an exodus from Hollywood occurred en masse for some unstated reason,” snopes.com says in a March 8 post.
According to Snopes, the stories appeared to be posted solely on two websites: Headline Brief and McKenzie Post. Since then, there have been many others.
One of the reasons the article might have seemed believable at first glance is that celebrities actually do live in St. Charles. Probably the most famous are Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg, who were married in 2014 at the Hotel Baker. Their wedding cake was made by chef Alain Roby of the All-Chocolate Kitchen in Geneva. Brian Wilson reportedly owned a home there for many years and mysuburbanlife.com reports that Alec Baldwin has enjoyed an ice cream at Kimmer’s in St. Charles while visiting relatives in the area a few years back.
At least, that stuff was reported on more-credible websites. Whether to believe it or not is up to you.