Is Glen Powell’s Viral ‘Crazy Story’ About A Cannibal Real?

Glen Powell's viral story of his sisters's friend's date with a cannibal is dropping jaws, but did it really happen?

Glen Powell is great at portraying a fake hitman in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (now streaming on Netflix). He’s also a great sport who knows when to trust Sydney Sweeney’s intuition, and who knows, he might be great at wrangling tornadoes in Twister too.

He’s also an entertaining storyteller, but did Glen Powell unknowingly repeat an urban legend while speaking with Jake Shane on the Therapuss podcast in late May? It sure feels like that’s the case (at the 22:00 mark ^^^ in the above video), but the “crazy story” (as Glen begins the tale) is now going viral:

Glen related an account that sounds like it belongs in Fresh (the movie starring Sebastian Stan as a cannibal who kidnaps Daisy Edgar-Jones). The account apparently came from his sister, who “was friends with a girl who went on a date with a guy.” She went to his apartment, and he offered to give her a massage. Then this “black market lotion” scenario arrived from Glen’s mouth:

“He starts massaging her shoulders. Everything just feels odd. She’s like, ‘I gotta get out of here.’ It’s a little weird … she leaves. Her skin starts itching like crazy the next day. She goes to the doctor … it turns out it’s a black market lotion that breaks down skin for human consumption. This man was rubbing lotion on her body to eat her. The doctor is like you have to give me this person’s address and you should call the police. They go to this guy’s house, and he had several bodies in the house.”

Yup, that’s enough to freak people out. A few examples:

So, real or not real? Skepticism also arose from Buzzfeed, and it sure sounds like this is a variant on an urban legend that Snopes deemed false.

In all likelihood, Glen was simply relaying a story that knocked him down, and people are reacting accordingly. Of course it’s really bad idea to go back home with a stranger and then accept a massage, but this probably did not happen, and it almost certainly did not happen without making national news. Or so you’d think! (Watch out for secret cannibals, y’all.)