Tony Hawk Got a COVID Test and Wasn't Recognized—Yes, Again

Tony Hawk has one of the most recognizable names in the world—his face, on the other hand, not so much. On countless occasions, the man who essentially put skateboarding on the map is mistaken for some other famous athlete, assumed to be a Hawk lookalike or simply not recognized at all. Such was the case for Hawk recently when a woman at a medical center didn't realize who Hawk was while he was taking a COVID-19 test.

"At a Covid testing site (wearing masks), handing over paperwork for me & two of my kids: Woman looking over papers: 'okay... Anthony, Keegan and Kadence... Hawk? Are you guys related to Tony Hawk?' Me: 'Yes.' Her: 'Are you pulling my leg?' Me: 'No, we are all directly related to him,'" Hawk tweeted on Thursday.

Fans were tickled by the incident, but there were some people who couldn't deny that they may not recognize Hawk either should they encounter him. "These stories have me afraid I'll randomly meet you one day, make a comment about it, and find out it was you all along on Twitter," one person wrote.

However, some fans didn't realize Hawk's full name was Anthony. "By the lord I swear I read the tweet twice but didn't realize HE was the Anthony," one Twitter-user wrote.

Hawk's encounter with the woman at the coronavirus testing facility isn't the first time a person hasn't recognized him and it likely won't be the last. Over the years, the businessman has shared multiple accounts of not being recognized or mistaken for someone else, like that one time he was at a coffee shop in Cancun and was asked if he was Tony Stark—otherwise known as Iron Man—or when a guy at a restaurant asked if anyone had ever told him that he looked like NFL player Tom Brady.

Transportation Security Administration agents at airports routinely misidentify Hawk—like that one agent who thought he was cyclist Lance Armstrong—or rather, they know he's someone famous, someone they've seen before but just don't know exactly who that famous person is.

According to Hawk, these types of interactions happen a great deal more than what he shares on Twitter.

"It happens actually more often than I write about, but it's usually not a really funny interaction," the 52-year-old said in a May 2020 interview with Business Insider. "I think sometimes people, I assume, get excited, and they're trying to register it... so they'll just sort of say things without really giving them critical thought. I think that's usually what ends up happening where it's like 'you're, uh, T-T-Tom Brady!' Where it just comes out because they know there's some sports star whose name starts with a T.'

He added: "Most of the time those are the things I like to share because they're much more humorous interactions."