FURIOUS Ewan McGregor is threatening to “take action” over an imposter conning thousands of internet users on a popular social networking site.
A cyber faker using Twitter has been passing himself off as the Trainspotting star and nearly 20,000 fans have been duped by the online chats.
Updates about the ‘actor’s personal life’ have appeared regularly on the site over the last few weeks.
But the Scots hunk has failed to see the funny side of the prank and is now threatening legal action against the site.
McGregor’s doppelganger has amassed an amazing 17,323 fans since becoming active on the site last year.
And the banal postings include messages claiming the Star Wars hunk is “about to enjoy banana pancakes” and is having “a lazy day”.
The site also includes a link to another fake McGregor site on MySpace, which contains personal photographs of the Crieff-born stars friends and family.
The movie star is famous for being steadfastly protective of his personal life.
Lorna Robertson, a Stirling University student, admitted she was “very disappointed” at finding out the Twitter account is a fake.
She said: “I received what I genuinely believed to be an email from Ewan McGregor. It wasn’t long – he just thanked me for complimenting his acting skills.
“It was very uplifting to think he could have been bothered to send me a reply. Itv really cheered me up but to find out it was a hoax is very disappointing.”
The new Twitter website allows users to post messages of up to only 140 characters.
Celebs such as John Cleese, Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry are keen fans of the site.
Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Star Wars actor admitted the McGregor site was a fake.
He said: “Ewan does not have a Twitter site – they have just made it up. People monitor his movements and then copy them down and put on their own comment as well.
“He has never had a MySpace site either. At the moment, we are looking into taking action with Twitter to have this removed.”
