In 2001, you could get away with lies like this simply because people didn’t have the means to check your story.
In 2015, that isn’t the case. A nosey reporter can start backtracking your movements and it doesn’t matter if you are Brian Williams or Steve Rannazzisi the truth will normally come out.
Rannazzisi who stars in the FXX show “The League” had told a story that he moved from NY to LA after escaping the towers on 9/11. The New York Times verified that he was nowhere near the towers, so he had to release a statement.
Confronted this week, though, with evidence that undermined his account, Mr. Rannazzisi, after a day of deliberation, acknowledged on Tuesday that his account was fiction. Actually, he had been working in Midtown that day, and not for Merrill Lynch, which has no record of his employment and had no offices in either tower.
“I was not at the Trade Center on that day,” he said in a statement provided by his publicist, Matthew Labov. “I don’t know why I said this. This was inexcusable. I am truly, truly sorry.”
I know why he said it, because it sounded like a good story. That is why people lie daily.
H/T Deadspin