AITA for ruining my brother’s childhood memory by admitting I photoshopped it 14 years ago?

A Reddit user shared a heartfelt story about creating a fake childhood memory for their younger brother. To cheer him up after a canceled family trip, they photoshopped a picture of him meeting Daniel Radcliffe, which became a cherished memory for over a decade. When the truth was revealed years later, it stirred unexpected emotions. Read the full story below to see how this thoughtful gesture took a surprising turn.

‘ AITA for ruining my brother’s childhood memory by admitting I photoshopped it 14 years ago?’

The article has the next update at the end.

When my younger brother (20 now) was 6, he went through a huge Harry Potter phase. He loved the wizarding world and believed he might meet ‘Harry Potter’ (Daniel Radcliffe) or the other characters on a family trip to Scotland since Hogwarts was ‘there.’ No one promised him this, but he convinced himself it could happen. Sadly, the trip was canceled after our grandpa passed away, and my brother was devastated for both reasons.

To cheer him up, I decided to craft a ‘souvenir’. I was 16 and had just discovered photoshop, so I edited a picture of my brother with Daniel Radcliffe to make it look like they’d met. I printed it, framed it, and gave it to him without telling him it was fake.

He loved it and fully believed he’d met Daniel. Soon, he had an entire story about the meeting; what they talked about, how Daniel hugged him, etc. It was so sweet, and none of us (my family and I) had the heart to tell him the truth.

Fast forward 14 years, and my brother still didn’t know that the old, low quality picture of him meeting Daniel Radcliffe is fake. I never told him because his memory of the fake meeting felt so real to him that it became one of his proudest stories. Over time the memory became less important and the framed picture had been packed away in some box, and my brother has long outgrown his Harry Potter o**ession.

Yesterday, however, we were at our parents’ home and we were bringing up old memories, you know how it goes. The story of meeting Daniel Radcliffe came up, and thinking it was harmless, I told him the truth. I thought he’d laugh but instead he got visibly upset. He didn’t want to believe me at first, thinking I was messing with him. I told him the real story of how and why I did it.

He told me that it feels like I robbed him of a real childhood memory that he really cherished, and he feels embarrassed thinking about all the times he’s told people about meeting Daniel Radcliffe in person, even recently. We ended our conversation on a semi-good note, though.

I apologised for not telling him sooner, because I do feel bad that it meant so much to him even now. But I don’t regret it. Back then, it made him so happy during a rough time, and I don’t regret giving him that joy. I just didn’t realize how much it still meant to him. So I’m just wondering, am (or was) I the a-hole?

Update here: https://aita.pics/hbNXg

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

Miss_Judge_and_Jury −  NTA. It’s like Santa. You did it with good intentions and he never met him. He was 6, now he is 20. Maybe disappointing, but he’s 20 years old…. It would be worse to continue the fantasy for an adult. I am sure no one ever thought at the time this would be the result 14 years later, sounds like he just never got the memo it wasn’t real… much worse things that can happen as an adult.

WelfordNelferd −  I’m a tad surprised that you could convince a six-year-old they’d met their idol when they hadn’t, but you’re still NTA. Did he even question it at the time??

Ciskakid −  Just goes to show that false memories really can be planted so firmly they become real. Every time he told the story it was reinforced. Parents really should have said something by age 12 or 13.

SpaceAceCase −  I don’t get why people are comparing this to Santa… this feels so extreme that everyone kept up this lie for so long. Your almost 10 years older then him, why didn’t you or anyone else tell him sooner? Your grandfather died, he was a child grieving, this false memory would have been so easy for a young kid to cling onto in the mist of all that. It seems so cruel to do this for years… ESH except your brother. 

inquisitivemind79 −  YTA for not telling him sooner. This is not like Santa or the Easter bunny or unicorns or anything like that. This is something that could have actually happened and there was no way for him to know it didn’t really happen. 

There are better ways to cheer up a kid than lying to them. This is seriously insane that you allowed this to go on for so long. If my family had told me I met someone or had visited a specific country as a kid and had a photo that looked real I would absolutely believe it I don’t have much of a memory at that age and anyone who says they actually do probably have false memories like your sibling.  This is a horrible and weird thing to do to someone you care about. 

CuriousEmphasis7698 −  NTA. You were 14 he was 6. You did a cute thing for your kid brother. It’s not on you that the adults in the situation never clued him in, and let him persist in thinking this event really happened into adulthood.

Really they should have done something, up to an including getting him professional help, when he started developing the fantasy that the meeting had really happened and behaving like it was a real event. That is when the adults should have intervened because that is when it stopped being harmless fun.

Edit for ages: I mis-read the original post. If OP was 16 when the pic was made then the brother would have been 8 (if he was 6 when OP was 14). That doesn’t substantially affect my point here, other than that it is perhaps even more worrying that an 8 year old would develop this fantasy, because at 8 he should have been old enough to recall that they *never went on the trip* so there was no possibility that he met the actor.

DamnitGravity −  Wow, you and your entire family gaslit him. For YEARS. For over a DECADE. Your parents should’ve stopped you from giving him that photo as a kid. Yeah, you meant well, but so what? Doesn’t change the fact it’s now having real-time consequences. “Meaning well” doesn’t change the fact you all lied to him.

The biggest assholes are your parents for allowing and perpetuating this. You’re slightly the a**hole for going along with it. Not the a**hole for finally telling him, even if you did break his heart a little, and now he’s gonna question every single one of his memories, and what else you and your parents have lied to him about.

Roan_Psychometry −  YTA. If you found out that one of your happiest and proudest memories as a child was completely fabricated AND covered up by your entire family, how you would you feel? I would feel betrayed at a minimum. Honestly, this going to be hard to recover from in my opinion. I hope your brother is a better person than me, but I might never talk to you again.

buttweave −  YTA foe letting it go on for so long. Yeah, it may have been cute at first, but when you realized how seriously he took it you should have said something. I don’t get the point in everyone letting him believe that, it’s so weird to me.

QueenQueerBen −  NAH. You did a sweet thing and 14 years later you admitted the truth without thinking it through. He obviously cherished the memory and feels like you ripped it away from him. Neither of you are at fault. Mistakes were made but there was no malice involved.