While many of us have flocked to dating apps like Tinder and Bumble to find ourselves a partner in recent times, you’d think Hollywood A-listers wouldn’t need to use such means.
It turns out, however, some of them do. Though it’s not exactly straightforward for them, either.
Not because they can’t get swiped, but – it seems – because when a Hollywood A-lister joins a dating app, no one believes it’s them. In fact, they so don’t believe they are who they say they are, the famous person gets reported and blocked on the app entirely. It’s just so tough being famous.
Take Sharon Stone, for instance. The 61-year-old actor, famous for such films as Basic Instinct, Total Recall and Casino, recently joined the dating app Bumble, but was swiftly blocked from the service when too many people reported her account to be fake.
Sharing the hilarious mix-up on Twitter, Sharon wrote:
I went on the @bumble dating sight and they closed my account.
Some users reported that it couldn’t possibly be me!
Hey @bumble, is being me exclusionary?
Don’t shut me out of the hive
Stone then included a screenshot of the message she had been sent from Bumble, which said ‘Your account has been blocked because we’ve received several reports about your profile being fake.’
Naturally, Sharon’s sharing of her Bumble blunder attracted a fair few responses, with one hopeful (but not without limits) replying:
hello sharon
if youre ever in buffalo and kinda dig fat guys with mustaches my dms are open
also own a car so willing to drive (up to 25 miles) even if ya just close by
talk to ya soon [sic]
Since then, Bumble has realised the error of its ways, telling The Guardian: ‘Our apologies for the confusion… Being the icon that she is, we can understand how so many of our users felt it was too good to be true.’
The dating service has now reinstated Stone’s profile, and replied to the actress on Twitter, saying:
There can only be one [Queen] Stone. Looks like our users thought you were too good to be true. We’ve made sure that you won’t be blocked again. We hope that everyone in our community takes a sec to verify their profiles. (Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct gets a pass today!)
Not content to leave it there however, Stone replied:
Dear Bumble, you are confusing my honesty with your fantasy. This is a disservice to the men and women who partake in @bumble. I am Sharon, I am a woman. Thank you.
While other dating apps are available, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bumble experiences a surge in people signing up to their service…
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.