Celebrity Number Six

Submission 6,201

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About

Celebrity Number Six refers to the search for the identity of an unknown female celebrity on a piece of fabric printed with a repeating pattern of eight celebrities in a pop art style. In January 2020, Redditor u/TontsaH made a post sharing the piece of fabric and asking for the identities of the celebrities. All the celebrities were identified except for one woman, who became known as "celebrity number six," sparking a years-long search for the identity of the person, mostly through the dedicated subreddit /r/CelebrityNumberSix. In early September 2024, the celebrity was possibly identified as Spanish model Leticia Sardá, although there was controversy surrounding the claim, with some believing the photograph of Sardá was AI generated, although these claims are unconfirmed.

Origin

On January 27th, 2020, Redditor u/TontsaH made a post to the subreddit /r/tipofmytongue^[1] asking, "Who are these celebrities/movie stars in this fabric," garnering around four upvotes and 41 comments before it was removed by moderators. The user shared an image of a piece of fabric they used as a curtain consisting of a repeating pattern of eight celebrities.

Commenters managed to find the identities of each celebrity except for one woman, who became known as "celebrity number six." On February 12th, 2020, they made a post to /r/Movies^[2] sharing a cropped image of the celebrity, asking if anyone knew their identity and linking to the subreddit /r/celebritynumbersix,^[3] a then-recently created subreddit made to find the celebrity's identity, garnering over 30 upvotes in four years.

The identified celebrities purportedly consist of Adrianna Lima (who appears twice on the curtain), Josh Holloway, Jessica Alba, Travis Fimmel, Ian Somerhalder and Orlando Bloom. The photos of Lima come from a 1999 XOXO photoshoot and the 2004 Victoria's Secret Angels Across America Tour, the image of Holloway comes from the 2004 GQ "Men of the Year" event, the photo of Alba comes from the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, the picture of Fimmel comes from the 2003 WB Upfront, the one of Sommerholder comes from a 2005 ABC press party and the image of Bloom comes from Japanese magazine Kinema Junpo.

Spread

Redditor u/TontsaH continued their search over the following years as the woman in the image remained unsolved. On April 14th, 2021, u/TontsaH posted the fabric image to the subreddit /r/tipofmytongue,^[4]^[5] asking, "Who is this celebrity/famous person on my curtains?" The post gained over 1,100 upvotes before it was removed by moderators.

On August 15th, 2021, YouTuber^[6] Justin Whang posted a video about the search for celebrity number six, garnering over 330,000 views in three years. On November 7th, Whang uploaded a video to YouTube^[7] offering updates on the search for celebrity number six, with the woman still going unidentified, garnering over 290,000 views in the same span of time.

On June 29th, 2024, a megathread was started on the /r/CelebrityNumberSix^[8] subreddit containing all the most important information about the search up to that point.

September 2024 Possible Identification as Leticia Sardá

On September 8th, 2024, Redditor u/IndigoRoom made a post to /r/CelebrityNumberSix^[9] sharing a photo of Spanish model Leticia Sardá that appears to be the unedited photograph which was used on the piece of fabric, writing, "Celebrity Number Six has been found," garnering over 58,000 upvotes in a day. Although posted by u/IndigoRoom, the identity was purportedly found by u/StefanMorse.

In a comment, the OP explains how they found the original photograph by reaching out to the photographer, writing:

The person depicted in the picture is the spanish model Leticia Sardá. A few days ago, I got in touch with the photographer Leandre Escorsell asking if he knew something about the image. I asked him because he took the photograph that served as a cover of the supplement of Woman Nº162 spanish magazine that features Leticia. He claimed that he recognised the photo and sent me the picture.

The Redditor also made a dedicated post to /r/CelebrityNumberSix^[10] further explaining how they collaborated with u/StefanMorse to find the identity. Later that day, u/StefanMorse made an AMA on the /r/CelebrityNumberSix^[11] subreddit, in which they elaborated on how they found the potential model by searching for an edited version of the celebrity number six photo using the AI image search tool Pimeyes:

I'm still in disbelief that it got found and so happy, when I found leticia for the first time my jaw dropped by the uncanny similarity that I couldn't send anyone the lead of leticia sarda for a month and a half just cause of how shocked and insane it was that I thought no one would've believed me 😭 and now cut to today where it's literally been found hopefully and I'm just in awe by it.

The way I found her is not by going through a magazine or anything of that sort, I simply grabbed the six images and edited them to oblivion without using any AI or anything cause fellow researchers, AI legitimately doesn't help with shit and just slows down the search.

I practically took the fabric and made it seem less like a fabric and more like a real person, it still looked a bit like a cartoon and not like a real image, more so a mix of a fabric image and an animated looking real person, but the results I got from it were legitimately impressive that I thought if anyone has done something like this before.

The way I found leticia is exactly by that, I took the results to pimeyes and leticia was the person I got.

I didn't get her one or two time's, I got her like 7 or 8 times and all were different variants of my colored six image.

I think the chances of that happening imo to one specific suspect is just like weirdly uncanny, there had to be something there.

Reactions

The alleged identity of celebrity number six inspired both praise and skepticism following u/IndigoRoom's claims. On September 8th, 2024, Redditor u/HughWattmate9001, a former moderator of the sub, made a post believing that the image was AI-generated or otherwise faked.^[12] His comments regarding this were collected in a post to /r/SubredditDrama^[13] by u/cloverfrommandarin on September 9th.

Later that day, the moderator announced they'd be stepping down from their moderator role in a post to /r/CelebrityNumberSix,^[14] writing in reference to the claims:

As for the latest drama, let’s not jump to conclusions just yet! We’ve been burned by hoaxes and "this is the one" moments before. Let’s wait until someone gets their hands on that magazine (it’s on its way), or we hear from the photographer who can confirm if the pic is legit, and they indeed sent it. Patience is a virtue, people!Also, a quick PSA: death threats are not cool. So, let’s chill on the threats to me and IndigoRoom, okay?