Justin & Hailey Bieber troll fans with fake pregnancy posts on Instagram

You can’t trust anyone on April Fools’ Day. The US Open will not, sadly, have dogs fetch tennis balls. Tom Brady isn’t retiring. And James Comey isn’t running for president (actually, erm, maybe that isn’t a joke.)

But the two people having the most fun causing chaos? Justin and Hailey Bieber.

This afternoon, on Instagram, Justin Bieber posted a picture with no caption. It didn’t need one. The grey and white photo was fuzzy, yet clear as day: an ultrasound.

The couple surprised the world when, in July, they got engaged in the Bahamas. Then, they surprised everyone again when they got married. So was this just… another chapter in the Bieber-Baldwin love story?

Considering Justin’s Instagram is the same as the photo that’s on the “Ultrasound” Wikipedia page, and the second result when you search “ultrasound” on Google Images, it was clearly a joke. Plus, Hailey herself debunked it by commenting “very funny” on the post.

But! Justin—gotta love him—doubled down on the prank. He followed up with another Instagram, this time of Hailey cradling her stomach in a doctor’s office set up. (“Set up” is important here, because although the room does give off a totally bland, sterile vibe, there is an IV bag that’s not hooked up to anything? Plus, no ultrasound machine, and no one here is wearing a white coat.)

Eventually, he dropped the “April Fools” punchline, posting a picture of an… ultrasound puppy. It was the end of a well-executed, and funny, hoax.

But beyond the laughs, there may be an astute point here. Female celebrities are constantly dodging pregnancy rumours. It’s both sexist and degrading—take it from Jennifer Aniston, who, for decades, was (and still is) the subject of untrue speculation. “For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up,” she wrote in an essay for The Huffington Post in 2016. “The sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant (for the bajillionth time… but who’s counting) points to the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.”

And that narrative has hit Hailey, hard. Last week, Bieber wrote a lengthy note (on Instagram, of course) explaining why he was taking a break from touring. In it was a line that some found suggestive: “I am now very focused on repairing some of the deep rooted issues that I have as most of us have, so that I don’t fall apart, so that I can sustain my marriage and be the father I want to be.”

Although Bieber was most likely talking long-term here, cue the pregnancy rumours from the tabloids and fans on the internet. (Sure, many of the comments might have been well-intentioned—that would be one cute kid, after all—but many probably weren’t. After all, Justin recently defended Hailey against a fan who claimed he only married her to get back at Selena Gomez. Which turns out to be a common occurrence: “I’ve seen multiple people say things like this,” Justin wrote in a lengthy retort captured by @commentsbycelebs.) And when they married in the first place, some claimed it was a shotgun wedding because Baldwin was expecting. She wasn’t.

Back in March, Hailey told Vogue that she and Justin weren’t planning to have kids for at least a couple of years. The internet, though, didn’t listen. So hey, maybe the troll was well-deserved.

This article originally appeared at Vogue.com

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