“This isn’t like we’re doing some joke, this is real.” These are the words Pauly Shore uses to describe guest Steve Rannazzisi’s harrowing tale of being in the south tower of the Word Trade Center as a plane hit the north tower on September 11, 2001. The comedian finally admitted this week it was a lie.

It’s a tale he’s told time and again in interviews, from the one above to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, and it’s a non-life-event that he has attributed all manner of his life’s decisions to. He famously has claimed to have fled his Merrill Lynch office just moments before the second tower was struck, and thus decided to dedicate his life to his true passion of comedy. Rannazzisi had found success, with a comedy special slated for this Saturday on Comedy Central and seven-season role in TV show The League, but it remains to be seen what will come of his admission, when caught, that he had falsified such an integral part of his life experience.