Putin Weirdly Insists That Old Schoolmates No Longer Recognize Him

Russia’s Vladimir Putin bizarrely confided in residents of the Far East on Wednesday that people with whom he went to school years ago no longer recognize him in person.

Sitting down for a televised town-hall style meeting with residents of Anadyr in the Chukotka region, the Russian leader suggested he has had awkward encounters with former classmates: “I rarely [do it,] but I meet with my classmates, former students. They often look at me and say, ‘I don’t believe it, is it you or not?’”

While at first glance his remarks may have seemed like a reference to rampant rumors on social media that he has multiple body doubles, he went on to suggest that he’d become unrecognizable, apparently, from having too much power.

Read more at The Daily Beast.