Feigned madness

"Feigned madness" is a phrase used in popular culture to describe the assumption of a mental disorder for the purposes of evasion, deceit or the diversion of suspicion.

In some cases, feigned madness may be a strategy—in the case of court jesters, an institutionalised one—by which a person acquires a privilege to violate taboos on speaking unpleasant, socially unacceptable, or dangerous truths.

Investigative journalists and psychologists have feigned madness to study psychiatric hospitals from within:

Odysseus fakes insanity , early 17th century tapestry. Ptuj Ormož Regional Museum, Ptuj Slovenia