Joaquin Phoenix is living the dream – specifically a cheese-informed fever dream that makes no sense whatsoever.

But a dream nonetheless. How many of us have wanted to quit our jobs, grow a gigantic Unabomber beard and become a rapper under Diddy’s tutelage? That’s right, none of us. And that’s why, from all logical perspectives, Joaquin Phoenix’s behaviour has to be part of a giant Borat-style prank on the world.

Except it isn’t. Despite recent reports suggesting that Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck are making a spoof documentary about this together, Joaquin insists it’s completely real. We’ve never been so scared.

When we think of Joaquin Phoenix these days, we smell something fishy. Admittedly that’s probably just cognitive association stemming from the fact that Joaquin Phoenix looks like he last washed his balls sometime in the summer of 1998, but also it’s a partly because we can’t quite believe what we’ve been seeing lately.

Over recent months, Joaquin Phoenix has retired from acting in the most hapless way possible, grown a dirty great beard, trained to become a rapper with help from Diddy, got Ben Affleck’s little brother to follow him around filming it and stumbled off the edge of a stage during his first ever show. You could literally give a million monkeys a million handgrenades and none of them would ever be able to come up with anything that even comes close to approaching the spectacular stupidity of Joaquin Phoenix’s rap career.

Which is why rumours are building that it’s all a great big fake. A report yesterday claimed that Joaquin Phoenix is only getting up to all these shenanigans because he and Casey Affleck are pulling a big Andy Kaufman-esque art prank on everyone, and the end result will be a spoof documentary lampooning self-important stars and, we guess, the gullibility of the media.

But that’s not the case at all, says Joaquin Phoenix’s mouthpiece Susan Patricola. Joaquin is definitely a rapper. Definitely. MTV reports:

“The transition from one career to another is never seamless. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Joaquin came from a musical family, in addition to winning a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Johnny Cash. He intends on exploring his musical interests despite speculative, negative or positive reactions.”

See? Joaquin Phoenix is a true artist in his heart and soul, and this rap career will prove it for good. Either that or Susan Patricola is in on the hoax as well. Which she probably would be, come to think of it.

So there’s still a chance that Joaquin Phoenix is playing a trick on us all. We knew there was something funny going on, right from the moment where he called Casey Affleck the future of acting in his retirement speech. That sort of talk doesn’t belong anywhere outside the realms of high comedy.

Anyway, our point is this – if Joaquin Phoenix really is playing a trick on us, we don’t want anyone to draw attention to it. God knows what a disaster it’d be if he aborted it and went back to acting.

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