"Worst Twerk Fail Ever" Viral Video Was a Hoax Masterminded by Jimmy Kimmel

Late night comedian manages to fool everyone as he discloses he's the one behind the massively popular viral twerking video

By Josh Grossberg Sep 10, 2013 1:08 PMTags

Jimmy Kimmel pulled a fast one—and America fell for it.

A viral video titled "Worst Twerk Fail Ever" that snagged more than nine million views and generated interest from the media shows a young woman whose ill-fated attempt at twerking resulted in setting herself on fire.

Now it turns out some skeptical Netizens were right—the whole thing was a hoax brought to you by the folks at Jimmy Kimmel Live!

On Monday night, the funnyman opened his show by inviting the Kansas City native who stars in the clip, Caitlin Heller, to give her first full interview via Skype of her twerking disaster and explain just what the heck happened.

"Why would you upload something that was kind of embarrassing?" he asked.

"I did not want to first but my friend kind of talked me into it," she confessed.

After Kimmel asked her why the video stopped so suddenly, Heller answered that she had the rest of the footage if viewers wanted to see it, to which Kimmel replied, "I think it's best if we do this together actually."

At that point, Kimmel walked across the stage to a curtained-off area and joined Caitlin—who clearly was not in Kansas City—to watch the "Director's Cut," i.e. the rest of the video.

Heller, wearing yoga pants and a pink shirt, was twerking upside down against a door when her roommmate walks in, causing her to topple over onto a table with lit candles. Of course, she accidentally set herself aflame and began screaming. Hilarity ensued for Netizens watching on their computer.

What they didn't count on, however, was seeing Kimmel, dressed in an identical pink shirt, walking in with a fire extinguisher to put out the fire!

As the late night host admitted with a laugh, "The conspiracy theorists on the Internet who thought the video was fake, you were right, we made it up."

Kimmel subsequently revealed they shot the vid two months ago but didn't release it to any TV stations, news sites or tweet about it, but instead put it on YouTube and "let the magic happen."

And it turns out, Caitlin isn't even the twerking girl's real name. It's Daphne Avalon, and she's a stuntwoman.

Score one for the comedian.

Noting hundreds of news outlets fell for the prank and even tried to blame Miley Cyrus' outrageous twerk-filled VMAs performance for the "dangers of twerking," Kimmel rounded up a bunch of clips of media fails.

"Thank you for helping us deceive the world and hopefully put an end to twerking forever," he told Daphne.

Mission accomplished, Jimmy! You can view the original viral video below.