Halle Berry is quite the jokester. The actress, 55, rang in the New Year with singer and fiance Van Hunt, 51, and decided to play a prank on her celebrity friends and followers with a photo on Instagram.
She wrote, “Well… IT’S OFFICIAL,” as the couple shared a kiss in what appeared to be in a vacant chapel while on vacation, Page Six reported.
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Berry wrote, “It’s 2022!” in the second photo as they smiled while posing for the close-up selfie.
After posting the series of photos, the congratulations and well wishes started to pour in from fellow celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ava DuVernay, Octavia Spencer, and Tia and Tamera Mowry, along with followers in the comment section.
“Blessings, Queen! Wonderfulllll,” DuVernay commented.
“Congrats, you two!!! Beautiful!!” The Rock wrote, adding a few clapping hand emojis.
As the comments continued to flood the Instagram post, Naomi Campbell, Taraji P. Henson, and Questlove all fell for the prank as well.
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Berry was amused at the comments on the post, especially from fans who were confused. “It’s official. It’s 2022. Isn’t that what this post is saying?” one follower asked, to which Berry replied, “Yeeesssss!!”
While others fell for the prank, filmmaker Oge Egbuonu realized it was all in good fun and decided to alert commenters who were puzzled by the post, “I’m [gonna] need some of y’all to scroll to the left.” Berry pinned the comment.
On Sunday, Berry set the record straight in a new post shared on Instagram.
“We were just having some New Year’s Day fun! People clearly don’t swipe as much as we thought they did,” she explained in her caption. “Thank you for the well wishes, tho’. It really touched our hearts!”
She added, “Now it’s OFFICIAL, the internet is no longer undefeated. #nomoreswipes4me #Januaryfoolsday.”
The Oscar award-winning actress and Hunt have been in a relationship since 2020. She made it official by posting a photo to her Instagram account wearing one of his t-shirts.
In October, she attended the Elle Women of Hollywood Awards and opened up about her relationship with Hunt, Sis2Sis reported.
“I had a lot of support … [Hunt] was a big part of that,” Berry told the outlet. “He did some music for the movie. He actually wrote the title song.”
Though the couple did not tie the knot, Berry was married three times before meeting the entertainer. “She was previously married to baseball player David Justice from 1993 to 1997, singer Eric Benét from 2001 to 2005, and actor Olivier Martinez from 2013 to 2016,” Page Six reported.
Berry and Martinez share an 8-year-old son, Maceo, and she also has a 13-year-old daughter, Nahla, from a long-term relationship with model Gabriel Aubry.
Hunt has an 18-year-old from a previous relationship. He has never been married.
