10 Insane Reasons People Faked Their Own Death

8. To See How People Would React

Turns out the plot of "The One With The Memorial Service" - our favourite episode of Friends, where Chandler spreads a rumour that Ross is dead amongst their college friends and the latter decides to hold a memorial service to see who would turn up - is actually based on truth.

And we don't mean David Schwimmer really does have sex with dinosaurs...so far as we know. The trope of turning up at your own funeral goes back as far as Mark Twain, whose Tom Sawyer fantasised about the impossible act.

A good few decades before that even, Lord Timothy Dexter actually did fake his death in order to attend the memorial service. Because he wanted to see what people thought of him. Dexter was a self-proclaimed Lord, born in Massachusetts in 1748, an autodidact who came from nothing to publish a wildly popular book. A book riddled with poor spelling and grammar, but popular nonetheless.

That never held Dan Brown back, after all. Not feeling universally beloved as it was, Dexter decided to fake his death to see how many people would turn up. In fact 3000 mourners turned up to the mock wake, but his wife didn't cry, so her burst out of his hiding place to have a go at her. Which is much worse than pretending you're dead and not telling your wife.