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Director: 'Chloe and Keith's Wedding' video is a hoax

One of the hottest viral videos of the last year has been Chloe and Keith's Wedding, afunny little clip of a bride getting knocked into a pool by the clumsy best man mid-ceremony. It was uploaded to YouTube in October of 2008 and has been viewed by at least 30 million people since then. In February,Time magazine ranked it as one of Internet's99 Greatest Hits. It has aired onThe Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Showand Australian, British and Japanese news networks. Take a look:

Chloe and Keith have laughed about their wedding day, and appeared onGood Day L.A. on Oct 5 talking about a longer version is nowavailable as a 40-minuteDVD and download.

But today, we can tell you: it's definitely a hoax.

Chloe and Keith are actors namedJosh Covitt andCharissa Wheeler. They're not married. The clip and its video follow-up are both part of a completely scripted independent film conceived by writer/director Archie Gips along with producing partner Dennis Anderson and executive producer Nancy Moonves (ex-wife of CBS chief Les Moonves). The pool the bride fell into? That was Nancy's. It was filmed at her house. 

"Yes, it's a hoax," Archie told Lifeline Live in a phone call a little while ago. Added Nancy, "We didn't set out to fool anyone. It just took on a life of its own." 

Archie doesn't really like the word hoax. "It's more a blurring of reality and fiction," he says. It started as a way of marketing what they saw as a romantic comedy movie and it snowballed so much that they kept the myth alive. What about flat-out lying - as the actors seemed to do onGood Day L.A.? "We tried to lie as little as possible," says Archie.

But he admits that some people are really ticked off at finally knowing it's not a real clip of a real wedding - and that they're now selling it. "I've gotten some vicious emails," says Archie. They've been trying to get on several of the shows that ran the clip initially and one TV show producer was "livid," says Nancy. "He felt very betrayed. Where's his sense of humor?" What's your reaction?

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