UnNews:House star denies he is Richard III

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5 February 2013

LOS ANGELES, California -- House star Robert Sean Leonard has been forced to deny allegations made by British historians that he is the controversial former king of England, Richard III.

Startling resemblance: Leonard (left) bears an uncanny likeness to the facial reconstruction of Richard of York (right).

"I have no idea what you guys are talking about," said Leonard, who played Dr Watson Dr Wilson in the hit Fox show, outside his Beverley Hills house. "Hasn't that guy been dead for like 500 years? How you can think that I am him?"

Leonard's vehement denials were met with scepticism by the academics, however, as he refused to undergo a test to see if his DNA matched that of Richard's known descendants. "I think the visible evidence is fairly conclusive in itself," said Dr Joanna Corey, professor of history at Cambridge University. If you look at these two pictures [reproduced above.] you can clearly tell that he basically took off his hat and got a haircut, and then jumped on the first available boat to America, which was the Mayflower."

Hugh Laurie, the British star of House, said he was devastated. "I worked with 'Robert' for almost a decade. I had no idea he was really Richard III, who Shakespeare taught me to hate. And there I was thinking I was good at doing an American accent!"

"It just goes to show, you might think you know somebody, but then they turn out to be a disgraced monarch from the 1400s."

At the time of press Leonard was refusing to leave his house, where a small gathering of descendants from the House of Lancaster was forming. Leonard's lawyer Bernie Fitzelstein told us that, come what may, his client will not "engage in dynastic warfare," and "has no interest in making any claim to his right to rule the United Kingdom."

Sources

• Leverage "The face of Richard III" BBC, February 05, 2013