Actors Debby Ryan and Chase Stokes are not the same person, so Debby Ryan claims...
Debby Ryan is setting the record straight after social media users speculated that fellow actor Chase Stokes might actually be her clone.
At a West Hollywood screening of her new film, “Spin Me Round,” the Disney Channel alum confirmed last week that she and the “Outer Banks” star have previously crossed paths, debunking a long-running internet conspiracy theory that she and Stokes are the same person.
“I went to eat Brazilian [food] at a Brazilian steakhouse in Universal City with some of my family members, and years later, Chase Stokes told me he was our server, and we interacted,” Ryan tells E! News in red-carpet footage released Wednesday.
“So, purportedly, we have been in the same place at least one time.”
Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline, who play John B and Sarah Cameron, respectively, on the Netflix teen series “Outer Banks,” are also a couple offscreen.
The silly obsession with the actors’ striking resemblance began around the same time Stokes landed his breakout role on the popular teen Netflix drama “Outer Banks,” which premiered in April 2020. By then, Ryan was already relatively well known for her work on Disney Channel sitcoms “The Suite Life on Deck” and “Jessie,” as well as the short-lived but buzzy Netflix comedy “Insatiable.”
“chase stokes looks exactly like debby ryan...try and change my mind,” tweeted @defobridget in July 2020.
“Have you ever seen Debby Ryan & Chase Stokes in the same room?” tweeted @itsoliviafed in May 2021. “Just saying...”
“Someone said chase stokes looks like Debby Ryan and now I can’t unsee it,” tweeted @corbettrdavis in August 2021.
‘There’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences,’ said ‘Suite Life’ alum Cole Sprouse of his female Disney Channel co-stars.
Naturally, the celebrity doppelgängers have also made waves on TikTok, where some users have uploaded videos morphing their faces together and made comments about their similar physical features, from their bone structure to their eyebrows.
“We all know Chase Stokes from ‘Outer Banks’ — attractive, talented, hardworking — looks a little like Debby Ryan,” said @sugeneshin in a video that has amassed 13,000 views on TikTok.
“I always think about it. I don’t know why. I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t unsee it. Tell me this isn’t the same person. They look the same. ... I can’t unsee it. I can’t unsee it!”
In May 2020, Stokes addressed the Ryan comparisons on Instagram Live, where he credited all the conspiracy theorists out there with bringing the 29-year-olds together “in the craziest of ways.”
“Debby is a super cool person, so thank you crazy people for putting me and Debby in contact because now Debby’s the homie, and Debby and I chit chat,” Stokes said.
“The internet is a weird place. And I appreciate how weird it is because I’m weird.”
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