“Double take”: Bus Rider Stuns With Resemblance to Morgan Freeman and Mandela

• A Facebook post showed photos of celebrity lookalikes, including a man who looked like both Morgan Freeman and Nelson Mandela
• The gentleman was spotted sitting on a bus with greying hair and features that resembled both the US actor and the former SA president
• Social media users couldn't decide which celebrity he looked more like, with some saying he looks like both of them combined

A man spotted on public transport has left people doing a double-take after his uncanny resemblance to two famous figures. Facebook user @ProjectNightfall, who shares interesting content about what's happening in the world, posted photos on 21 January 2026 with the caption:

"When you spot a celebrity lookalike in the wild... 😳"

The post showed different photos from various people shared online, and the Facebook user compiled all of these lookalikes into one post, asking followers to identify the popular people these individuals resemble.

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One of the pictures showed a gentleman who looked like two celebrities: Morgan Freeman from the US and Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa. The man was sitting on what looked like a bus, seated between two women. It is unclear where this gentleman is from, but he had greying hair and facial features that, depending on how you look at it, resembled both men. Someone captured the picture and shared it, and many people were able to see the resemblance.

View the Facebook post below:

How common are lookalikes?

According to a report by the BBC, you are surprisingly likely to have a living doppelganger. Researchers at the University of Adelaide studied nearly 4,000 faces, measuring key features like the distance between eyes and ears. They found that the chance of two people having exactly the same measurements is less than one in a trillion. So, even with over 7 billion people on Earth, the odds of finding an exact match are very low.

But when we talk about doppelgangers, it’s not just about exact measurements. People usually notice things like hair, eyebrows, or face shape, not tiny details like ear length. For example, someone with short blonde hair, brown eyes, a round face, and a beard could have about 74,000 possible lookalikes. So, while exact doubles are rare, finding someone who looks very similar is quite common.

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Mzansi loves the lookalike

Social media users shared what they saw on the Facebook page @ProjectNightfall's post:

@Katie Jean Abernathy wrote:

"Nah that's Nelson Mandela."

@Junaid Blaauw said:

"That's no lookalike, that's Freeman."

@Precious Mulo commented:

"He's also old, what coincidence 🤣😂"

@Hajara Yahaya Gudaji shared:

"When Morgan and Nelson had a son😂😂"

@Vren Theophilus added:

"Nah this one needs a DNA test."

@Jean Mat asked:

"Which one... Cause everybody look like somebody I know."

@Mpho L Scott gushed:

"Morgan Mandela."

@Boucle d'Or Cosmétique stated:

"Benson Mandela 🤣"

Other celebrity lookalikes making waves

• Briefly News recently reported on DJ Tira's son's looakalike confused social media users when a photo of him in odd clothing was shared.
• A TikTok video of a woman quickly went viral in South Africa due to her striking resemblance to former President Jacob Zuma.
• Another lookalike of DJ Maphorisa surfaced on social media and had fans howling with laughter.

Source: Briefly News