Perdon TrendThe short answer. The "I'm so sorry I lied" Halloween costume trend is the English version of TikTok's perdon trend: a photo carousel that opens on an AI-glamorized version of a childhood Halloween costume, takes one upgrade back per slide, and ends on the real homemade costume captioned "I'm so sorry". It took off on October 20, 2026, under the TikTok sound "original sound - secret". The Spanish original, the trend del perdón, took off two days earlier with the same structure and a different sound. You can make one by hand or from one photo on Perdon Trend, where the Halloween costume style makes every slide with its caption in about 2 minutes.
Updated October 21, 2026.
What the trend is
The first slide claims a dream costume. A real post we read opens with "When I was little I was a princess for Halloween" over an AI version with long golden curls, a princess gown and a crown. The next slides own up one thing at a time: "Ok sorry, I had yellow hair", then "Ok sorry, I never had a dress". The last slide is the real photo, a cheap yellow wig and a pink snowsuit, with "I'm sorry".
Every slide comes from the same photo, so the pose and the face stay the same while the costume falls apart. That gap between the glamorous first slide and the real one is the whole joke.
1. this was my halloween costume
2. ok i lied, my wig wasn't that good
3. my costume wasn't that expensive either
4. and it wasn't a fancy party
5. i'm so sorry
Where it came from
The format started in Spanish. The earliest post we found in this format is from October 14, 2026, posted from Peru, and the Spanish wave took off on October 18, 2026. Its most-shared post is by @julietaasoriia, posted from Argentina, with about 40 million views; TikTok's own discovery page also calls the format the "juliiieta trend". The Spanish posts use a Harrison guitar sound, a clip of Purple Rain, which was in 152.3K TikTok posts on October 21, 2026.
The English version uses a different sound, "original sound - secret", created on October 7, 2026. Until October 17 that sound carried another photo trend, captions like "Add a filter." ending on an old photo. The "When I was little… / Ok sorry…" format moved onto it on October 19, and on October 20 it exploded. Whether the English posts borrowed the format from the Spanish ones, we have no evidence either way.
How big it got
On October 21, 2026, "original sound - secret" was used in 174.2K TikTok posts. We sampled 621 of them from the sound page, which sorts by popularity, so the counts below describe that sample, not every post.
| Day (2026) | New posts in our sample | Of them mentioning Halloween or a costume |
|---|---|---|
| October 19 | 63 | 14 |
| October 20 | 407 | 152 |
| October 21 (half a day) | 79 | 29 |
In our sample of 621 posts, 195 mention Halloween or a costume, and new posts jumped from 63 on October 19 to 407 on October 20. The most-shared English Halloween post we read, from October 19, 2026, had 1.3 million likes and 466,000 shares.
The hashtags in the sample show the same thing: #halloween in 146 posts, #halloweencostume in 57 and #costume in 28, against #imsosorry in 14. Some posts are tagged #aisucks (7) or #noai (5), people calling out that the first slide is AI.
The Spanish Halloween version
Spanish posts have their own costume branch: a costume from kindergarten or an early Halloween, made perfect by AI and then taken apart. In our Spanish sample of 354 posts, #halloween appears in 34, #costume in 11 and #disfraz in 5, which makes costumes the biggest variant there too. The posts we read include a pumpkin costume at age five, a Wednesday costume from kindergarten and a homemade clownfish. Their captions open with "este fue mi disfraz de Halloween…" and close on "Perdón". Our Spanish how-to covers that version.
Costume ideas that work
The costumes in the real posts are rarely scary. On the "secret" sound's page on October 22, 2026, the captions we read named Hello Kitty, Smurfs, an ice princess from a Disney film, clowns, a ballerina, Star Wars, a crayon, a jaguar and an elephant: cheap homemade costumes from when people were small. The joke works best when the real photo is the most homemade, because slide 1 turns that same character into a movie-quality version.
These are sets made with this site, one per costume. Each card shows the AI slide next to the real photo, and its link opens the tool on that costume.
If your photo already shows a costume, keep "My costume, upgraded": the tool makes the movie-quality version of whatever you wore. If it shows no costume, pick one from the list.
How to make your own
The by-hand way: ask an AI photo editor for the dream version of your costume photo, then for the same picture with one upgrade undone at a time, and type the captions in TikTok. The how-to guide has the steps and what tends to go wrong.
From one photo: on Perdon Trend, the Halloween costume style is the one the tool opens on. Its four lies are a perfect wig, an expensive costume, a fancy party and pro makeup; tick up to 4 and you get up to 5 slides, captioned in the trend's own wording. For more lines to use, see the captions guide.
The Halloween costume style and its four lies.
Post it as a photo carousel: in the TikTok app tap +, then Upload, then Photos, pick the slides in order and add "original sound - secret".
Use it responsibly
- Use a costume photo of yourself or your own pet, or one you have permission to use, and be 18 or older to use our tool.
- Don't use photos of celebrities.
- Uploaded photos are deleted after 7 days.
- Perdon Trend is not affiliated with TikTok or with the creators of the trend's posts and sounds.
Questions people ask
- What is the "I'm so sorry I lied" Halloween trend?
- It is a TikTok photo carousel: the first slide is an AI-glamorized version of a childhood Halloween costume photo, each next slide takes one upgrade back with an "Ok sorry, …" line, and the last slide is the real homemade costume captioned "I'm so sorry".
- When did the "I'm so sorry I lied" trend start?
- The English Halloween version took off on October 20, 2026. In our sample of 621 TikTok posts using its sound, new posts went from 63 on October 19 to 407 on October 20.
- What sound does the "I'm so sorry I lied" trend use?
- English posts use "original sound - secret", a TikTok sound created on October 7, 2026 and used in 174.2K posts as of October 21, 2026. Spanish posts of the same joke use a Harrison guitar sound instead.
- Is it the same as the perdon trend?
- Yes, it is the same joke: the Spanish posts close on "Perdón" and use a different sound, and they mostly use everyday childhood photos rather than Halloween costumes.
Make your "I'm so sorry I lied" set from one costume photo.