In honor of April Fools' Day this year, Michael Strahan managed somehow to pull off the most unbelievable prank that anyone could’ve seen coming: filling in his iconic tooth gap. It was, indeed, a prank, but one that quickly spiraled down a viral rabbit hole. People actually believed the gap was gone for good. Almost a month later, the Good Morning America host opened up about the regrets he has for pulling off the one prank to rule them all.
Apparently, Michael Strahan – a popular daytime talk show host and Pro Football Hall of Famer – didn’t anticipate that his fans would care about him and his most noticeable feature. Moreover, he didn’t think people would actually believe he had his gap filled in. But they did, and it inevitably had quite the polarizing effect among fans. When asked about the mishap on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Strahan said:
Well, I truly did not think people cared that much about my teeth. I just did it as a little prank thinking a few of my Instagram followers were gonna go ‘Oh, he’s crazy!’ They would know it was fake. I ruined part of my vacation, because I was on spring break with the kids, my phone blows up. 700 text messages, 400 emails, everybody trying to FaceTime me to see. I just ignored everybody. And I’m here to report that it was a prank. People still think it’s real. I had all these messages, like, ‘Oh, you do you, we’re so proud of you.’ But then I had the ones that were saying ‘You let Gap Nation down. You should be ashamed of yourself.’ But Gap Nation, I am here to say, I’m not going anywhere.
Michael Strahan must admit, though, that he put a lot of effort into a prank that he didn’t think fans would believe in the first place. The ex-NFL player had people filming him at his real-life dentist’s office in Manhattan getting the faux procedure done, days ahead of April Fools' Day. It was so believable, in fact, that his dentist reported how more than 100 people contacted him in the aftermath to get the Strahan special.
Clearly, Michael Strahan may have bitten off more than he could chew with his tooth gap prank. Perhaps it’s better left to the professionals like Eric Andre or Sacha Baron Cohen or everyone on the Jackass set. Some things are iconic for a reason, and we just don’t mess around with them lightly. Tooth gaps, I guess, are one of them.
Despite his ruined vacation, I love that at least Michael Strahan got a decent new name for his fanbase out of the rickroll. Move over, Madonna. Hopefully “Gap Nation” is more forgiving than the likes of “Bachelor Nation” and isn’t too serious about giving Strahan grief about his prank for long.
