There was a time when mentioning that you read or wrote fan fiction was considered a social faux pas. The hours spent nosing through Wattpad or AO3 entries were considered sacred, and most importantly, secret. Maybe it was Kat Hernandez in Euphoria, who was revealed to be a prolific writer of graphic One Direction "Larry Stylinson" fan fiction, or maybe it was watching some of the biggest stories of the genre turn into major motion pictures – Fifty Shades of Grey (originally a Twilight fanfic), The After Series (a Harry Style fantasy), and soon, Alchemised / Manacled. But gone are those days of stealth now – instead, we're living in a time when even your favourite actor, musician, comedian or model will proudly announce their fan edit accounts or FanFiction.net profile.
While we haven't necessarily gotten to the point of being able to read most of their work (we're still waiting for the link guys), this feels like a step in the right direction; one where we can say with transparency and honesty that our wretched little writing apps are where we cut our teeth. Below, all the creative minds who've confirmed their fan fiction prowess.
Brittany Broski
@mhcjaxx not milo from atlantis 😭#brittanybroski #royalcourtbrittanybroski #royalcourt #colesprouse #fyp #foryou #foryoupage ♬ original sound - mhcjaxx
Long before she was interrogating celebrities on Royal Court, Broski was writing them into her own stories. The comedian has spoken openly about her fan fiction era, which included stories about a young Robert Downey Jr. and, most notably, Cole Sprouse – her self-described longtime "literary muse". When Sprouse appeared on Royal Court in 2024, she confessed that at 19 she’d written a Gulf War-set fanfic inspired by Tumblr edits casting him as Milo from Atlantis. Naturally, she came prepared, presenting Sprouse with a highlighted copy of the story to read himself.
Kaia Gerber
Model, actor, book-club founder and, apparently, anonymous fan fiction author: Gerber casually revealed on Jake Shane’s Therapuss podcast that she writes fan fiction purely for herself. “It’s so fun to write something even if you don’t put it anywhere,” she explained, before becoming considerably more evasive when asked about her subject matter. Her only clue? “It’s not a human.” The internet promptly got to work, with Avatar fan fiction emerging as one theory – though Gerber, so far, is keeping the contents of her private canon firmly to herself.
Chloe Zhao
@newyorker On a new episode of #NewYorkerRadio, Chloé Zhao, who just wrapped directing the pilot of the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” revival, talks about what the modern world gets wrong about adapting existing I.P. Listen to the full episode at the link in our bio. #chloezhao #buffy #hamnet ♬ original sound - The New Yorker
Before Zhao was directing films for Marvel, she was playing with other people’s fictional universes online. The Oscar-winning filmmaker has spoken about writing fan fiction on LiveJournal and FanFiction.net – and, according to a 2020 Variety profile, she hadn’t entirely abandoned the practice after becoming a director. What fandoms she writes for, however, remain a closely guarded secret. “Never reveal your pen name,” Zhao cautioned. “Many people ask me, but you will never find out.” Somewhere out there could be an anonymous Zhao masterpiece hiding in plain sight.
Olivia Rodrigo
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Rodrigo was writing One Direction fan fiction by the tender age of 10 – only to accidentally live out something resembling one of her own stories years later. Speaking on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Music Makes Us podcast, Rodrigo recalled eventually meeting Harry Styles, getting tea with him and walking around together. The surrealism only really hit once she got home: “I feel like I wrote that in a fan fiction and I, like, lived it.”
McKenna Grace
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While Grace hasn’t publicly confessed to writing fan fiction, but she does have an equally compelling piece of fandom lore: she secretly ran a fan-edit account as a teenager. She's admitted to making video edits for a tiny account of around 200 followers, including edits devoted to The Hunger Games and Peeta Mellark. The hobby might have remained safely buried in her internet history had an Entertainment Tonight reporter not revealed it to Josh Hutcherson during a red-carpet interview – while both Grace and Hutcherson were promoting the next Hunger Games film they'll both be part of. A nightmare scenario for anyone who has ever maintained a secret fandom account.
Olivie Blake
For Olivie Blake, fan fiction wasn’t simply an internet-era hobby – it was the beginning of her career. The author, whose real name is Alexene Farol Follmuth, originally generated the pseudonym 'Olivie Blake' so she could anonymously publish fan fiction online, eventually building a devoted readership for her Harry Potter stories. She became particularly well known within the Dramione community for works including Clean, before making the leap into original fiction. Her self-published fantasy novel The Atlas Six went viral, and was picked up for traditional publication and turned her once-anonymous fanfic pen name into a bestselling one.
