James Bond’s crocodile escape was performed for real, and during filming, one of the animals bit the heel of the stuntman’s shoe. In Live and Let Die (1973), the man running across their backs was Ross Kananga, owner of the Jamaican crocodile farm used in the film. The animals’ feet were secured with weights, but their jaws and tails were free. Kananga slipped into the water during an early attempt and kept going until he completed the stunt. The filmmakers had discovered his farm after spotting a sign reading: “Trespassers will be eaten.” They worked the location into the story, and borrowed its owner’s surname for the villain, Dr Kananga.

Justin Montney’s fiancée died before their wedding. When he asked their videographer for his $1,800 back, the company built a website in his name to attack him. Then it posted on their wedding day. Alexis Wyatt, 22, died in a Colorado car crash in February 2020, three months before the ceremony. The company refused to refund the deposit, citing their nonrefundable contract. Montney acknowledged the terms but asked them to reconsider. After he spoke to local news and negative reviews poured in, the company launched a website publishing their exchanges, and claimed his deposit had paid to keep it online for two years. On May 23, the day he should have married Alexis, it posted a photo of the couple alongside this message: “We hope you sob and cry all day for what would have been your wedding day.” “Sorry, not sorry.”

Stephen Hawking had an affair with his nurse, then married her after divorcing Jane, his wife of 30 years who had supported him through his illness. The nurse’s former husband was the engineer who adapted Hawking’s speech device for his wheelchair. The nurse was Elaine Mason. They married in 1995. Five years later, police investigated concerns about Hawking’s unexplained injuries. Another inquiry followed in late 2003. Carers reported a broken wrist, facial cuts and an incident in which he was allegedly left outside in extreme heat, suffering sunburn and heatstroke. Hawking firmly denied being assaulted. He said he loved Elaine and credited her with keeping him alive. Both investigations closed without charges. In March 2004, police said they found no evidence substantiating criminal acts against him. Hawking and Mason divorced in 2006.

Roger Moore is the oldest actor ever to play Bond officially, finishing his run at 57 in A View to a Kill in 1985. He stopped being Bond was because of how much older he was than his female co-stars. He later said in interviews that during filming he realised the situation had become absurd, that his leading ladies were young enough to be his grandchildren and that the romantic framing had tipped from fantasy into something he personally found uncomfortable. If Jacob Elordi was cast and filmed the role at 29, he would tie George Lazenby as the youngest Bond during filming. Jack Lowden would be closer to the typical starting age.

Davide Morana lost both arms and both legs at 24. Four years later, he ran 100 metres in 12.13 seconds. In January 2018, the Italian developed what initially felt like flu. He later described violent vomiting, severe headaches and red marks spreading across his body. He had meningococcal meningitis. Doctors placed him in an induced coma. After waking, he recalls being told that 93% of people in his condition usually didn’t survive. His limbs couldn’t be saved. Months of rehabilitation followed as he relearned everyday tasks and adjusted to four prostheses. He eventually became a competitive sprinter, recording that 12.13-second time at Italy’s national para-athletics championships in 2022. In 2023, he helped create the Meningitis Flag to raise awareness of the disease.

Kanye West once asked Danny McBride to play Kanye West in a movie, and travelled to his house to discuss it. McBride revealed the story on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2019. When Kanye first called, he thought it was a joke. Kanye apparently assumed he lived in Los Angeles. Learning that McBride lived in Charleston, South Carolina, didn’t stop him. They spent the afternoon boating and discussing Kanye’s life story. Back home, McBride’s seven-year-old son had a question: did Kanye want to watch him play Fortnite? He did. In 2025, McBride said they exchanged thank-you texts after the visit. “And that was the last time we spoke.”

Peter Sellers was chasing “the ultimate orgasm” in 1964. He ended up suffering what he later described as eight cardiac arrests. His wife, Britt Ekland, said he had used poppers before sex that night. The 38-year-old survived, but his recovery forced him out of Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid. Ray Walston replaced him, and Sellers was told to rest for months. Wilder’s reported response was brutal: “You have to have a heart before you can have an attack.” Sellers returned to acting later that year, but heart problems continued throughout his life. He died after another heart attack in July 1980, aged 54.

In 2023, 13-year-old Lesly Mucutuy survived a plane crash that killed her mother, then kept her three younger siblings alive for 40 days in the Amazon. The youngest was an 11-month-old baby. Their Cessna crashed in Colombia on May 1. All three adults aboard lost their lives, leaving Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and baby Cristin stranded. Lesly relied on the jungle knowledge she’d learned growing up Huitoto. They ate wild fruit, palm seeds and cassava flour salvaged from the wreckage. Lesly mixed flour with water and used a leaf to drip it into Cristin’s mouth. At night, they sheltered beneath a mosquito net, tarp and leaves. Cristin turned one before help arrived. On June 9, Indigenous rescuers heard a baby crying and followed the sound. All four children were alive.

Eileen Fox’s STI tests came back clear after she discovered her husband’s affairs in 2017. Within two years, she was undergoing surgery for cervical and vulvar cancer. Her initial tests hadn’t included HPV. Around 16 months later, cervical screening detected HPV16, a strain strongly linked to cancer. Further investigations revealed the cancers. In her published account, the mother of four describes undergoing a radical hysterectomy in May 2019, having parts of her labia removed and returning for repeated procedures to remove abnormal tissue. In 2023, she was also diagnosed with anal dysplasia, precancerous cell changes.

Amanda Playle’s husband comforted her while a stalker made her afraid to leave home. Then police traced some of the abusive messages to their own internet router. The stalker was her husband. Between December 2015 and June 2017, Paul Playle impersonated her former school boyfriend online. He described what she was wearing, commented on a new handbag and contacted her family and colleagues. As Amanda became increasingly frightened, Paul played the concerned husband. He denied responsibility, claiming he’d been “stitched up”. But CCTV also showed him taking an airport photograph that the stalker had sent her. In January 2018, he was convicted of stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour and jailed for three and a half years.

Last Breath (2025). It’s based on the true story of deep-sea diver Chris Lemons, who was stranded 300 feet underwater with an emergency gas supply expected to last just five to eight minutes. However, Lemons ended up being stranded on the ocean floor for almost 40 minutes.  In September 2012, the ship supporting his North Sea dive lost its positioning system and drifted away.  His lifeline snagged and snapped, cutting off his breathing gas, heat and communications. Alone in the freezing darkness, he eventually lost consciousness. When his colleagues recovered him, they feared they were bringing back a body. Inside the diving bell, they removed his helmet and gave him rescue breaths. He came round. Lemons recovered without lasting brain damage. Three weeks later, he returned to diving, with the same colleagues who had saved him.

In 2010, a California woman took a sip from her office water bottle and suspected it contained semen. Then it happened again. This time, she kept the bottle. She asked her fiancé to provide a comparison sample, then had the workplace bottle tested. A private lab confirmed her suspicion. DNA testing identified her coworker, Michael Kevin Lallana. He admitted contaminating her water twice. He found her attractive, he told detectives, and knew “her lips had touched” the bottle. In 2011, he was convicted of two misdemeanor battery counts with sexual-gratification enhancements. He received 180 days in jail, three years’ probation and an order to register as a sex offender. He was also ordered to pay over $27,000 in restitution.

Eight days after their June 2013 wedding, Jordan Graham promised Cody Johnson a surprise. She took him to Glacier National Park, and pushed him off a roughly 300-foot cliff. Then she told his family he’d left with friends. As people searched, Graham created a fake email account and sent herself a message from a stranger named “Tony”. It claimed Cody had d*ed during a hike and urged her to call off the search. She eventually pointed searchers to his body. It was recovered on July 12, five days after she k*lled him. Graham pleaded guilty to second-degree m*rder midway through her trial. In March 2014, she was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

In 2015, Forbes valued Elizabeth Holmes at $4.5 billion. A year later, it revised her estimated fortune to zero. Holmes left Stanford at 19 to build Theranos, promising hundreds of blood tests from a finger prick. Investors poured in more than $700 million, pushing its valuation to $9 billion. But the technology couldn’t deliver. Its machines produced unreliable results, and Theranos secretly relied on conventional equipment for much of its testing. Whistleblowers and journalist John Carreyrou helped expose the deception. In 2022, Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison. A24’s new documentary, You Can See Everything, follows Holmes in the weeks before prison, after she invited filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into her home.