You’ve probably seen the grainy, black-and-white photo of a young Marilyn Monroe on a beach, looking absolutely radiant in a striped bathing suit. But if you look closer—or if you've spent any time on the weird side of the internet—you’ll notice something that doesn't quite add up. People have been pointing at her left foot for decades, swearing they see an extra digit.
The Marilyn Monroe six toes rumor is one of those classic Hollywood urban legends that just refuses to die.
It’s right up there with the idea that she was a size 16 or that she had a secret affair with every single person in the Kennedy administration. Honestly, the fascination with her body never really ended when she passed away in 1962; if anything, it got more intense. We want our icons to be perfect, but we also kind of love it when they have a "flaw" that makes them human.
But did she actually have polydactyly? Or is this just a case of bad lighting and 1940s film grain playing tricks on our eyes?
The 1946 Beach Shoot That Started Everything
Back in March 1946, a photographer named Joseph Jasgur took a series of photos of a then-unknown model named Norma Jeane Baker. They were at Zuma Beach in Malibu. This was before the platinum hair, before the name change, and way before she became the most famous woman in the world.
In one specific shot, Norma Jeane is sitting in the sand. If you zoom in on her left foot, there’s a weird lump next to her pinky toe.
It really does look like a sixth toe.
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Jasgur himself later leaned into the mystery. In interviews later in his life, he’d recount the story of that day, sometimes suggesting that there was something unusual about her foot. In a 1991 interview, he even claimed that he saw it with his own eyes. "I couldn't believe she had six toes," he reportedly said. He even went as far as to suggest she might have had it surgically removed later to fit into those tiny Hollywood stilettos.
But here is where the story gets a bit shaky.
Jasgur wasn't exactly a disinterested observer; he spent years trying to sell those early negatives and capitalize on his connection to the star. If a "secret" makes the photos more valuable, well, you do the math.
What the Evidence Actually Shows
If we’re being real, looking at a single blurry photo from 80 years ago isn't exactly high-level detective work. To get to the bottom of the Marilyn Monroe six toes mystery, you have to look at the rest of her life.
She spent a huge portion of her career in open-toed shoes, sandals, or completely barefoot.
Think about the movie The Seven Year Itch. Or the famous "red velvet" pin-up photos taken by Tom Kelley. In those high-resolution shots, her feet are clearly visible. Guess what? She has five toes. Exactly five.
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There are also plenty of other photos from that exact same day at Zuma Beach. In other angles and shots from the Jasgur session, the "sixth toe" is nowhere to be found. What looks like an extra digit in one frame is clearly just a clump of wet sand or a shadow in the next.
The Medical Record
Then there’s the final, albeit grim, piece of evidence: the autopsy.
When Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962, Dr. Thomas Noguchi performed a very thorough examination. He noted everything—scars, bruises, her general physical condition. He specifically mentioned a small scar on her abdomen from a gallbladder surgery and another from an appendectomy.
He didn't mention a sixth toe. He also didn't mention any surgical scars on her feet that would indicate a toe had been removed.
Noguchi was known as the "Coroner to the Stars" and was notoriously meticulous. If there had been a physical anomaly like polydactyly, or even a surgical correction of it, it would have been in the official report. It wasn't. Basically, the medical record confirms she had ten toes and ten fingers, just like most of us.
Why the Myth Still Matters
So why does this story keep coming back?
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Part of it is the Mandela Effect—that weird phenomenon where groups of people remember things differently than they actually happened. People want to believe they’ve spotted a secret that everyone else missed. It makes the icon feel more "real" or "attainable" if she had a physical imperfection she had to hide.
It's also about the era. The 1940s and 50s were the height of the Hollywood studio system, where every detail of a star's life was manicured and controlled. If a star had a "defect," the studio would absolutely hide it. This creates a vacuum where fans assume everything we see is a lie, making even the wildest theories seem plausible.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Historians
If you’re researching Marilyn or just love classic Hollywood trivia, here’s how to handle these kinds of rumors:
- Check the Source Material: Don't just trust a zoomed-in JPEG on a conspiracy forum. Look for the original contact sheets. In the case of Joseph Jasgur's 1946 shoot, the other photos in the sequence debunk the "extra toe" claim almost immediately.
- Verify via Primary Documents: For physical claims about celebrities, autopsy reports and medical records (when available) are the gold standard. In Marilyn’s case, the Noguchi report is the final word.
- Understand the Context: Remember that early photographers often retouched negatives by hand. Sometimes "anomalies" are just the result of a stray brushstroke or a bit of dust during the developing process.
- Look at the Body of Work: A physical trait doesn't just disappear for 15 years of a high-profile career. If she had six toes, it would have shown up in her dozens of films and thousands of professional photographs.
The Marilyn Monroe six toes legend is a great example of how a single confusing image can spark a decades-long debate. It’s a fun bit of trivia to pull out at parties, but the reality is much more mundane. She was a woman with two feet, ten toes, and a whole lot of sand stuck to her in 1946.
Sorting through the myths allows us to appreciate the actual person behind the persona, rather than the "freak show" elements the tabloids like to invent. Norma Jeane had enough real struggles—she didn't need an extra toe to make her life complicated.