A question posted on Reddit five years ago had users painstakingly trying to figure out the identity of a celebrity featured on a piece of fabric. With the effort of many users, the person, known to the Reddit community as Celebrity Number Six, has been named after almost five years of searching.
On Jan. 29, 2020, Reddit user TontsaH posted a message on the r/movies subreddit in hopes of identifying all the celebrities featured on a pattern of the pop-art style fabric that she purchased and made into curtains sometime in 2008. There were eight people on the fabric, and it was quickly determined that one of the people appeared twice, which left seven people to identify.
Little by little, the community worked together and named the celebrities and, additionally, confirmed where and when their photos were taken. The celebrities were Adriana Lima (who had two different photos featured for an unknown reason), Josh Holloway, Jessica Alba, Travis Fimmel, Ian Somerhalder, and Orlando Bloom. However, Celebrity Number Six remained a mystery.
The search for Celebrity Number Six
Reddit users posted hundreds of guesses, but there were no confirmations. The mysterious celebrity had shoulder-length hair, slanted eyes, a defined eyebrow arch, and a prominent jawline. The pop-art style made it more difficult to assess the celebrity’s features and gender. Thousands of users worked together to uncover the mystery, and a dedicated subreddit, aptly called r/CelebrityNumberSix, was formed soon after. Some of the guesses included Sharon Stone, River Phoenix, Rebecca Romijn, and even serial killer Richard Ramirez aka the Night Stalker.
Users were able to gather some information throughout the years. The fabric was featured in an Anttila mail-order catalog in the summer of 2009, and had been seen for sale in Finland, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Germany. The fabric’s supplier, Anttila, and even the original sellers of the fabric were contacted to no avail. Other efforts were made, including reverse image searches (both free and paid), posting on well-known forums and message boards, and asking AI, but still, no one could figure out who Celebrity Number Six was.
Then, a user named StefanMorse got a good lead after altering the image and getting a clearer picture of Celebrity Number Six. In a post, StefanMorse said he “edited them to oblivion without using any AI” and it resulted in a “mix of a fabric image and an animated looking real person.” He then used the face recognition search engine PimEyes and got the same result several times — Leticia Sarda.
Another user, IndigoRoom, looked for the photographer who took Sarda’s photo and found out it was Barcelona-based photographer Leandre Escorsell, who confirmed that he was the one who took the photo of Sarda that was used on the fabric.
Who is Leticia Sarda?
Leticia Sarda was a fashion model who started working at 13 years old and traveled the world, modeling for brands, such as L’Oreal, Burberry, Levi’s, and other many others before leaving modeling behind in 2009 to take care of her ill grandmother. Afterward, she focused on having a family and now, at 42 years old, works in the hospitality industry, as she stated in an interview with The New York Times.
Sarda doesn’t spend a lot of time on social media, and when she received an email from an unknown individual asking her whether she was the woman in the attached photo, she was befuddled. She wasn’t aware that thousands of people had been looking for Celebrity Number Six, which she confirmed was her. After finding out how big the mystery of Celebrity Number Six was, she took the time to look for the original photo the fabric was based on. Sarda knew it was in her modeling book, which she picked up from her agency.
The photo was from a fashion editorial booklet inserted in the March 2006 Spring/Summer issue of Woman magazine, wherein she was also featured on the cover. After learning of the entire Celebrity Number Six sage, Sarda set up an Instagram account and posted a photo of herself holding the original fashion editorial photo with the caption, “What a crazy week… here I am setting up my new account…”
On Sept. 8, 2024, the r/CelebrityNumberSix subreddit was updated with the post titled “Celebrity Number Six has been found.” Users were delighted to know that years of hard work finally paid off. The original poster, TontsaH, posted a comment that read, “JUST WOW!” “What a historic moment in niche internet history,” one user wrote. Another user posted, “What am I supposed to do with my life now?”
Published: Sep 13, 2024 03:50 am