My oh my—Macklemore has his Meryl Streep facts mixed up.
The Grammy-winning rapper may know his rhymes, but he may need to brush up on the Oscar winner's history. During an interview on The Zach Sang Show, the future father of two was on the topic of resiliency in the age of the Internet and social media when he brought up a quote from Streep that he had seen on Instagram.
"She posted something that was like, you know, my first audition or one of my first auditions, they told me I wasn't pretty enough and that was a pivotal moment for her to either keep going or to stop and she chose to keep going and 18 Academy Awards later or 23—18 or 23—I don't know. An exorbitant amount of Academy Awards," he said.
While we totally dig the message, Macklemore, we hate to break it to you, but it didn't come from Streep. In 2015, a photo of the young actress riding the subway went viral, along with a caption that read:
"This was me on my way home from an audition for King Kong where I was told I was too 'ugly' for the part. This was a pivotal moment for me. This one rogue opinion could derail my dreams of becoming an actress or force me to pull myself up by the boot straps and believe in myself. I took a deep breath and said 'I'm sorry you think I'm too ugly for your film but you're just one opinion in a sea of thousands and I'm off to find a kinder tide.' Today I have 18 Academy Awards."
Except, the quote isn't real, the Oscar count is way off and the photo was actually uploaded to a since-deleted account from her fans.
While the post was wrong about Streep's Academy Awards—the actress has three statues and a total of 20 nominations thus far—it was not entirely off about her experience with King Kong.
As she recalled to Graham Norton on his show in 2015, producer Dino De Laurentiis's son had seen her in a play and brought her to meet his father. However, when she appeared before Dino, he spoke to his son in Italian, calling her ugly and asking him why he had brought him an "ugly thing." In response, Streep revealed she had understood what he said and told him she was sorry she wasn't beautiful enough. As for the post-audition subway ride photo, that remains to be authenticated.
Though the accurate version of the story is inspiring considering Streep's immense career since, as Macklemore made clear in his interview, you can't believe everything you read on social media.