- ♪ MTV ♪
- Emma met a guy named EJ.
He claims that he’s part of this group of college athletes
that were sharing this fake social media.
- He would text me
from multiple different phone numbers.
It’s out of control at this point.
- I got a Instagram message from EJ.
He sent me multiple pictures of Emma naked.
- Is there something he seems to want?
[escalating music]
- To be with me.
[dramatic musical sting]
- All right. There she is. Back from London.
- I can’t believe I’m seeing you.
- Wow, really? - Yeah. Oh.
- I got hugs.
Oh, you got the new flag, huh?
- Yeah. I’ve changed.
[British accent] I’ve changed, babe.
- Tell me about "Catfish UK."
- Hey. - Hey!
- I mean, that is-- that’s the shot.
- [British accent] Oh, look, some tea.
So perfect. Thank you.
- That’s actually really good.
- I’ve switched sides. - Yeah.
- The British are coming.
- Lady Kamie, your throne.
- [laughing]
- Anyway, let’s get to work.
Enough chit-chat. We’ve got emails.
Here’s one. "He’s already confessed too much.
Hey, Nev and Kamie, my name is Emma."
I’m a 24-year-old speech pathologist
from Kenilworth, New Jersey.
I’ve been involved with someone named EJ
for the past six months,
but my question is how many people have I been talking to?
- Mmm... - I met EJ on social media,
and I instantly thought, "That’s my future husband."
He’s cute, and at the time,
played football for the University of [bleep].
He’s very caring and thoughtful
and always checks on me.
I recently went through
a total health and fitness transformation
and lost over 100 pounds.
- Wow. - So meeting EJ after that
felt magical.
Everything was going great
until EJ started acting in weird ways
and confessing some pretty crazy stuff.
First, EJ told me he would come see me in New Jersey,
but then he stood me up at the last minute.
I was heartbroken.
And when he finally got back in touch,
he told me that his friend Kyle had stolen his phone,
and I was actually talking to Kyle for that time.
♪ ♪
And then EJ comes out with a new confession.
Turns out, from the start,
I was talking to EJ’s shady friend Jake.
What?
At that point I was done.
I blocked EJ on everything,
but he wouldn’t stay gone.
I tried to move on and date someone new,
but EJ started DMing that person
and probably ruined my chances with him too.
This is getting stalker level.
Now I’m just freaked out.
He has my home address,
and I’ve sent him really provocative photos.
- ♪ Is it fact or fiction? ♪
- Please, help me unravel this mess,
and help me find some answers.
- Emma. - Whoa.
Let’s text Emma. We definitely need to find more about this.
- Hello, Emma. It’s Nev and Kamie.
I mean, Steve and Sammy.
[laughing]
Hopefully, she gets the joke. Oh, she gave it a haha.
I need some help understanding this crazy story.
- Do we even know if it’s a guy?
- It’s a very... - Has she talked to him
on the phone? - Strange person.
[chime] - Oh, hey.
- Hey. - Hey.
- Welcome. - Oh, Emma.
Hello, hello.
How are things in New Jersey?
- A little cold, but you know,
other than that, everything’s been cool.
- Well, we want to hear your story.
’Cause you mentioned in the email that meeting EJ...
- Mm-hmm. - Came right after this
health and fitness and wellness journey.
- So as of a year and a half ago,
I started to work out avidly,
just kind of changed my whole lifestyle
’cause I wasn’t happy with how I looked,
and I’m down just about 100 pounds.
It’s crazy. - That is crazy.
- Wow. - I look at myself sometimes.
I don’t even recognize myself.
So talking to someone after this whole transition
was kind of a big thing, you know?
- Right. - Yeah.
- So back in April,
he followed me on Instagram.
I was like, "Wow, he’s really cute."
I’ll slide in the DMs. So I messaged him,
and within a day or two, I gave him my phone number.
He started texting. He kind of came in
at a point where I needed someone like him.
Just like a really good caring person,
someone who was willing to listen.
And he would always remember little things that I told him.
I’m like, I’m a sucker.
If you could remember the little things I’m like,
"Oh, you pay attention." It was awesome.
- Okay. And his Instagram
to you looked fully legit and like a real person?
- Oh, yeah.
He had verified athletes commenting on his posts.
- Whoa. Really?
- Oh, he--’cause he played football?
- Yeah. So he claimed.
- What was his position?
- He claimed quarterback. - Classic.
- He could have said safety or something more believable.
- Right? But at that point,
I didn’t really think twice about it.
- And are you guys just texting or talking on the phone?
- So I’d be like, "Oh, can you FaceTime me?"
He’d be like, "Yeah, I’m in my practice.
As soon as I’m done with practice."
- Practice. Practice is the new "in the studio."
- Yeah. "I got practice." It’s so easy.
- Right. And he would always make it a point to FaceTime me
or call me whenever I was asleep.
- Oh my G--
- Isn’t that insane?
- So you have not spoken to him on the phone?
- No. Never.
- Okay. So why don’t you just take us
down the timeline of the foolishness?
Because there’s been a lot.
- Let’s fast forward now to June.
He tells me he can come see me.
So he buys his airfare.
He’s texting "I’m on my flight."
And then he’s like, "Okay, tomorrow be ready.
I have something special planned for us."
I’m like, "Oh, okay, cool." 1:00 rolls around,
and he tells me he’s outside my house.
So I’m outside on the street and I’m like, "Where are you?
You’re not here. I’m not doing this."
So at this point, I’m done and I cut him off,
but this is where it gets kind of nutty.
After a week and a half,
he claims that his phone got stolen by a kid
who is on the football team.
So EJ was like, "I haven’t been talking to you
for a week and a half."
And he sends me a long screenshot
of a message from this kid Kyle.
And he’s like, "Hey man, I messed up.
I’ve been talking to the girl
and I made it seem like I was in New Jersey."
It was a really long message that was sent.
And I was like, "Wow. Okay,
maybe that’s actually kind of believable."
- No. No. No one would leave their phone
for a week and a half-- it just doesn’t happen.
- Right. At this point something’s
like not sitting right with me.
So I reverse searched his phone number
and it’s registered to a Tiana [bleep].
- Whoa. - Good work.
- Right? - So what did he say?
- He then proceeded to tell me he actually had a fiancée,
and his fiancée’s name was Tiana [bleep].
- Oh my God!
- Finally, after days of arguing with him I’m like,
"I don’t believe anything you say.
I think you’re just a liar."
He’s like, "You know what? I have to tell you something."
He’s like, "Look up Jake [bleep]."
And I found out EJ’s pictures are actually the quarterback
at the University of [bleep].
- So EJ showed you that the pictures
that you thought were EJ had actually been Jake [bleep]
the whole time. - Right.
- What the [bleep] is happening?
- So now EJ is like me, Jake, and this kid Kyle
are behind this Instagram account
to cheat on their girlfriends.
- So now he’s claiming
that Jake has been in on this whole thing.
- Right. He sent me one more picture.
He told me, "Hey, this is me," and then
a couple days later, the person came up on my TikTok.
His name was Dane. And I’m like "That’s not you."
- Wait. So he said, "This is actually me"
and he sent you a picture of another kind of hot
influencer guy on TikTok.
- Yeah, he was an athlete. Again, they’re all athletes.
So at this point, I blocked him.
But no matter how I tried to cut this kid off,
he finds different ways to contact me.
So September 18th, I went and I got skin removal
and EJ text me from a different phone number.
It was like, "Here’s a video with Jake wishing you luck."
- Do you still have it? - What, the video?
Yeah. Do you wanna see it? - Yeah, we wanna see it!
- Okay.
- Oh, here we go.
- Hey, Emma. This is Jake. Just wanted to say hi
and wish you luck before your big surgery tomorrow.
Just know that I’m thinking about you
and I’m sure everything will go smoothly.
- It’s a Cameo. It’s a Cameo.
- Do you know what Cameo is? Do you know that app?
- No. - Okay. So there’s an app
where you can find athletes and actors and celebrities--
- And us. - We’re on there.
And pay them to record a video for you.
- Let’s look up his name.
- Jake [bleep].
- He’s got a [bleep] Cameo.
- What is that? - They’ve only got one on here.
- Emma! - Oh my God!
Wait, but that’s not you, is it?
- No! - "Thank you so much, Jake.
This really made my day. The surgery was a success."
- He must have made an account
and named himself Emma and [bleep] did it!
- Oh my God.
- That’s insane.
- EJ made a fake account calling himself Emma,
requested a Cameo, and then left a review as you...
- Sick. - Post-surgery.
- That’s sick.
I am floored.
- Wow!
This is nuts.
You are involved with one of the more
creative and sophisticated catfishes we’ve ever seen.
- That’s insane. - Is it easy for you
to show us some of the more recent photos
that EJ has sent you?
- Yeah, definitely.
This is the picture of the guy he claimed he was
after he told me he wasn’t Jake.
- This is Dane. - The TikToker.
- Right. That’s Dane.
This is a picture he posted of Jake.
- Do you have pictures of Kyle? - Yeah. This is Kyle.
- Can we see some of your messages?
- Yeah.
So this is him just constantly reaching out.
- He’s been messaging you on Kik?
- Yeah, because he’s blocked now on social media.
- And he just keeps sending messages.
He just keeps sending messages.
- Yeah. - You’re like still being nice.
- Oh yeah. I’m concerned
because he has nude photos and my address.
But also if I’m mean,
he’ll send me like biblical verses
and tell me I’m disgusting,
because I don’t see that God loves everybody
regardless of the sins that they’ve--
- Girl, get this [bleep] creep outta here.
What is happening?
- Isn’t that wild? - Wow. Okay. So what else?
- [laughing] No more.
- [laughing] - Please!
- Is there more?
- Yeah, so he messages my friend Tyler.
He’s like, "Do you know Emma? I heard she’s dead."
- What the [bleep]?
- And then EJ’s sending him
screenshots of nude pictures that I have sent him
to try and convince him that he knows me well.
And then a couple weeks ago, I was starting to
go out with someone that I’ve previously gone out with.
And EJ went to the extent of catfishing the guy
that I was seeing as a woman.
And I was like, oh my God...
- Uh...yeah.
- He’s crazy.
- This person is obsessed with you,
and it’s like actually crazy.
- It’s sick, and it’s just it’s out of control at this point.
- Is there something he seems to want?
- To be with me.
- It like literally gives me chills.
That’s so weird.
- All right. Listen, Emma, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
- Yes. - Send us everything.
- We’re gonna get into it right now. Sit tight.
We’ll--we’ll be in touch soon.
- Bye. - Bye.
[chime] - This is different.
- Clearly, there is a person or a group of people
who are taking great joy in manipulating her.
- She’s [bleep] scared.
Like, she’s scared. - Right.
- Whoever this person is, it’s time for it to end.
- All that talk about Cameo yesterday made me realize
I’m totally behind on my requests.
All right, ready, Kamie? We gotta do a quick Cameo.
It’s just about to expire. - What you got?
- This is for Sarah from her friend Jack
who says, "I honestly, I don’t watch ’Catfish,’
So maybe tie that in there somewhere."
- What? - The guy who got it just knows
that she loves the show... - Oh, my God.
- And has like no idea what it is.
Hey, Sarah, it’s Nev here.
Happy birthday.
- Happy birthday.
- And we’re we happy to be a part of it.
- Shout out to Jack, because he sent us here.
- And Jack, who has no idea
what we do or what "Catfish" is
but knew enough about you to know that you love it.
Bye. - Bye!
- Perfect. - Okay.
- All right. Basically, Emma met a guy on Instagram
named EJ, who’s proceeded to lure her
into a romantic relationship, string it out,
falsely lead her to believe that they were gonna meet up.
Then he brings up other stories about,
"Oh, that wasn’t me. My friend had my phone and oh,
I’ve actually been lying. I’m this guy."
And now he claims that
he’s part of this group of college athletes
that were at some point sharing this fake Instagram account.
He went as far as to order a Cameo from Jake,
the guy who he said he was friends with
to wish her a good surgery to make it seem convincing
that Jake is somehow involved in this.
Whoever Emma’s talking to
seems to be willing to do anything to get to her.
- Even catfishing the guy that Emma
is actually dating in real life
to try to drive a wedge between them.
- Emma’s in a situation right now that is worrisome.
This person has naked pictures of Emma,
and he’s proven he’s willing to use them.
We need to find out who the hell this is
and carefully put an end to this.
- Yeah.
- So we got another email here
from Emma with some information.
So, "Hy Nev and Kamie, here’s the info I have on EJ.
His full name is Elijah [bleep],
his phone number and his email on Insta
before he took it down, or it was taken down.
- Mm-hmm. - The first person
I was talking to was named Jake [bleep].
Then there was Kyle [bleep] who stole his phone.
He also messaged my friend Tyler about me being dead.
Tyler can tell you more about it.
You should reach out to him. Here’s his number.
I added all the pictures I have.
That’s all I have for now.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you so much. Emma." Okay, well...
here’s Jake. - Right.
- The real football player,
and Dane, the guy she recognized from TikTok.
I assume she’s also run the photos,
but it doesn’t really matter because--
- We know who they are. - Right.
- So let’s just start with this phone number.
This has been the number that is used most of the time.
- Right. - Oh yeah. Tiana [bleep].
- Same name that came up in Emma’s search.
Let’s run the number on Cash App and see what we get.
[lightly suspenseful music]
- Tiana. - Tiana.
- It’s her. - It seems like
we’re definitely dealing with a girl here,
and clearly it’s Tiana.
- It’s gotta be. - Which also makes sense
why they’ve never talked on the phone...
- Yeah. - Or FaceTimed.
- But who is Tiana? Who is she?
- But who is Tiana?
All right, let’s look up Tiana [bleep].
Interesting.
There are only three Tiana [bleep] on Facebook.
First hit is a sort of weird profile.
No picture, eight friends,
but it hasn’t been used in a long time.
Let’s see about this next one.
Another sort of dead profile, but let’s try this third one.
Looks like they’re all inactive.
It’s not a common name.
It’s just weird that there are
three Tiana [bleep] Facebook pages,
and they’re all very weird, empty profiles.
- She’s looking weird. She’s looking sus.
- Right. Very sus.
Guess we could do an Instagram search.
Tiana [bleep].
Oh, just one result.
Ooh. "Ball is life."
Athlete. - Mm.
One actual photo of her. "Bored.
Something to post. Like. Follow."
So this--what? - Uhh!
- What?
- Bible verse. - [gasps]
- [whispers] Bible verse.
- EJ has been sending biblical verses.
- Although, a lot of people do use Bible verses,
but that’s interesting.
- The phone number comes back to Tiana.
The Cash App comes back to Tiana.
- Right. - Clearly, Tiana is
at the center of this [bleep]storm.
- Yeah. But is this the Tiana we’re looking for?
What else do we have?
- We have the number for Tyler. - Right.
Emma’s actual friend who EJ sent Emma’s nudes to.
We should get his side of the story.
I’m gonna send a message.
Let’s just see if he gets back to us.
I wanna also reach out to Jake.
He’s one of the football players
who supposedly used EJ’s account.
I doubt it, but he may know something.
Hey, Jake. It’s Nev from "Catfish."
Do I have a story for you.
Give me a call.
Well, just about run out of things to search.
- We could search Kyle [bleep].
- Yes, let’s do that. He’s the other football player,
The one who supposedly stole EJ’s phone
and lied to Emma about meeting in New Jersey.
[suspenseful music]
Is this the guy?
Let’s send him a message--
I mean Kyle the same message.
[phone chimes] Ooh, look at this.
Tyler wrote back. Let’s see if he can talk.
- Can he Zoom?
- I’ll send him the link.
Here he comes.
[chime] Oh!
- How you guys doing? Nice to meet you guys.
- Welcome, to the show. - Glad to be here.
- Do you know about this crazy thing
that’s been going on with Emma?
- Yeah, pretty much everything about it. Yeah.
- And Emma’s a friend of yours? - Yes.
We went to high school together.
- Okay. And so you’re fully up to speed
with the whole crazy EJ saga?
- Yes. So a couple weeks ago
I got a Instagram message from EJ.
He asked me, "Is Emma dead?" And obviously she’s not.
So I was like, "You know, what is this?
You know, what’s going on with this?"
And then he then sent me back
multiple pictures of Emma naked
and said, "I know her very well."
- Wow. - Yes.
So then I gave her a phone call,
and then she gave me the whole rundown that,
you know, he’s pretty much a guy
that she was talking to that was, you know, stalking her.
And she told me that he made a fake
Instagram account of her that had her name in it
and was selling the naked pictures
that he sent me on the internet.
- Wow. We knew he’d sent them to you,
but we had no idea that there was
a fake Emma account selling her nudes online.
- Yeah. - I mean, it is concerning.
- It’s very concerning. Yeah.
There’s something very wrong with this person.
- Have you ever heard of a girl named Tiana [bleep]?
- No.
- Okay. Well, man. All right.
Well, thank you so much for your help.
Good to have some additional info from you there.
- Thanks, Tyler.
- No problem. Hope I helped you guys a little bit.
- For sure. - All right, guys.
Nice meeting you. - All right, later, bud.
Wow. So there’s even more
to the story that Emma didn’t mention.
- No. - They had a fake Emma Page.
People on Instagram were buying her nude pictures.
It’s so messed up. - What are they trying to do
other than like destroy her life?
I am now on a quest.
I’m not playing--I’m about to take this bitch down.
- Okay. Chances are the person that Emma’s been talking with
this entire time has been a woman named Tiana [bleep].
Which obviously explains not meeting up
and not talking on the phone or FaceTiming.
- But we don’t--who is Tiana?
- Right. - That is the question.
- All right. Let’s text Emma. Hey, Emma.
[chime] Hey.
- Hey, what’s going on?
- We’ve been on a little bit of a journey
trying to trace our way through your wild six months.
- Mm-hmm. - And we do have some stuff
that we want to discuss. - Okay.
- So as you had already discovered,
the number you have for EJ comes back to this girl.
- Right. Tiana [bleep]. Right.
- So we then put the number into Cash App,
which we find often people have,
and it came back to--to a Tiana [bleep] on Cash App.
- Oh. - So we looked up
Tiana [bleep] on Instagram
and we did find this.
Now, again, not a very active profile.
- No. - But they seem to be
into athletics. Right? - "Ball is life."
- And there’s one photo of someone posted from 2014,
a girl, presumably her.
- Okay.
- The weird part on this profile is
when you click on one of the photos
and you look at the caption...
- Biblical. - Right.
And you said that EJ has been sending you biblical verses.
- Yeah. - Could be completely
unrelated--who knows? - But you know, look,
since the number comes back to Tiana and the Cash App,
and this is the only Tiana [bleep]
on either Facebook or Instagram
that seems to have like an actual profile,
right now, this is the only potential
lead we have as to who is Tiana.
- Right.
- So we sent some messages out...
- Mm-hmm. - To both Jake and Kyle,
the football players. - Cool.
- We have not heard back from them.
Also, we spoke to your friend Tyler who filled us in
a little bit more of the details,
specifically about the fact
that the person was selling some of the photos?
- Yeah. Pictures.
[uneasy music]
- If I can ask, how did you find out about that?
- So I was actually in New York,
and I was ignoring EJ, Tiana, whoever.
And he or she texted me and said
"I’m in a really sticky situation.
"I made a fake Instagram and a fake Venmo
"when we first started talking
and I’ve been selling your pictures to people online."
So they openly told me about it.
The following day, they tried to tell me that it was a joke
and that they did it just to get my attention.
And I’m like, mm, see, I don’t really
believe that though, because you went through
the trouble of building up an Instagram account
then requesting people that I know.
- How come you never mentioned that to us?
- I was more or less embarrassed by it.
And yeah, it was just-- it was really messy and...
- The casual way that they would
send those pictures to your friend...
You think you’re sharing things with one particular person,
and then you realize that it’s a completely different person.
- Mm-hmm. - It just worries me.
- This is like a complete violation of trust
on so many different levels.
- Has it affected the way that you’re able to trust people?
- Oh, yeah, no, I feel like I cannot trust anybody now.
I’m not kidding.
- It’s very obvious that Tiana or whoever is behind this
is very deep in this like, down bad.
- Right. - Look, we still have messages
out to the players that had their pics stolen.
Giving them a chance to get back to us.
Hopefully, we hear from them.
If we don’t, then we have to probably just be prepared
to reach out directly to "EJ"/Tiana.
- Right. - But whoever this is
has already distributed your content, your pictures...
- Right. - Your name, your info.
- Mm-hmm. - So fingers crossed
we can have a conversation that ends
with them understanding that they need to stop.
- Right. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get something.
We’ll see. - All right, well, look,
let’s regroup in the morning.
We’ll see if we have any updates.
- Okay.
- And--and depending on what we do or don’t have then,
we’ll make an informed decision
as to what the next best move is.
- Okay. Thank you for helping.
It means... - Sure.
- More than you guys know. Bye, guys.
- Bye, girl. I feel bad.
- Yeah. She has to live with this constant fear
and always looking over her shoulder.
Anytime she posts something or gets a new friend request,
it’s like, oh God--everything.
- Yeah. It’s terrorizing.
This person has been terrorizing her
from every single angle.
And I--I want us to be able to help her stop it,
but it could be completely beyond the realm of anything
that we can possibly do to help her.
- Drizzly day here in Los Angeles,
which I think is very appropriate,
considering the cloud that seems to be hanging over Emma
and this whole situation. What is this person after?
Fingers crossed, as we figure it out.
[electronic music]
All right. Let’s see if either of those football players,
Jake or Kyle, got back to us.
Because honestly, it was all we had left.
Not a single response. Nothing.
- But maybe Emma’s heard from somebody?
- Possibly.
[chime] Oh.
- Hey! - Whoa!
- Hello, good morning!
- How have you been?
- Little nervous.
I got a text last night from EJ.
- Oh God.
- Reaching out to see if he could have my new number.
’Cause there was something he had to tell me.
- Well, so we haven’t heard back from either
those football guys, Kyle and Jake.
- The only thing that we have right now to go off of
is that message that you got from EJ.
- Okay. - Can you show us that message?
- Yeah. - What does he mean,
can he have your new phone number?
No. Oh, and you said it.
You said you’re not getting my new number.
- Yeah. - First she said
"I care about you a lot, wish we wouldn’t fight as much,
and we could just go back
to how we kind of were at first. I love you."
Had you been saying "I love you" to him back
when things were kind of good at the beginning?
- Yeah. - That’s a big deal.
You dropped the L bomb.
- I did. - That’s not nothing.
You know, that’s a thing. - No.
- He said, "I’m not gonna blow your phone up. I promise.
But I need your new number.
There’s something I gotta tell you."
Tell me right here. - Tell me right here.
- What--what’s the difference?
- What if she gave our number? - Ooh!
- That way we can message with him on your behalf,
and he still won’t have your real number
in case something goes wrong and he blows up.
- I love that idea. - Okay.
- All right. So let’s give him our number,
but put it in a message that feels authentic.
- "Okay, fine. I will give it to you.
Don’t abuse it."
- The number is 818-[bleep].
Oh boy.
- So let’s see. - Here we go.
- Whoo!
- Is he usually pretty quick with stuff?
- With me? Yeah.
I mean, he used to be really quick.
I’m not kidding, like on the second.
[chime] - [gasps]
- Oh--wait. What?
We just got a text.
- Okay. - It’s from Elena Fer-Ferri--
- Ferriera?
- Ferriera. - Ferriera. That’s him.
- It says, "I don’t feel like I’d abuse your number.
I just want talk to you." What is that name?
- Elena is the girl
that catfished the guy that I was seeing.
- Oh, so that confirms
that that was him. - Right.
- But how like ballsy and bold for you as "EJ"
to be messaging from this Elena Ferriera account
like it’s just nothing? - Crazy.
- He did write something before that was like,
"I don’t wanna fight anymore."
Blah, blah, blah, blah. So what if we played into that?
- Yeah. - The old bait and switch.
- Yes. You could say something like
I’ve actually been thinking about how things used to be
and I don’t wanna fight anymore.
I’d like to see you then.
- So let’s say, "Would you be willing to join a Zoom?"
- Yeah.
- Sent. - All right.
I wonder if he’ll actually do it.
- I feel like you’re not getting your hopes up.
- No. With him, I-- you absolutely cannot.
- Oh, read.
- Ooh, ooh, ooh! - [whispers] Oh, God,
he’s writing, he’s writing.
[tense music]
- Why not? You could always say like,
if I’m being honest with you,
I had to call in some reinforcements.
I really wanna meet you,
and I felt like this was the only way to make it happen.
- Okay. - All right.
Let’s just read it once. Okay.
[Emma reading]
- So I contacted "Catfish"
because they’ve had a lot of success
in helping people meet
and feel comfortable, seen and understood.
- All right. Wow. Sent.
- Let’s see.
[chime] - Ooh, ooh, ooh!
- Oh, come on.
- "Now isn’t a good time." When is a good time?
- Right.
- Well, now I think-- - Now, is the only time.
- It’s now or never for me.
- Be like, if not, I mean, just don’t--
like, we don’t need to be in contact, take care.
- I mean, I hate to say it,
but I just don’t think they care.
[chime] Oh. Oh!
- Good job. - I can’t believe that worked.
Copy in my link. - Oh my goodness.
- Say here.
- Oh! - Read it.
- [groaning] Ohh...
All right.
- Are you ready?
- We’ll see.
- He said he’s outside your house.
- Right. - And he wasn’t there.
So him saying okay, I’ll do it,
is not giving me a lot of confidence.
- No.
I hate that it’s taking too long.
[chime] - Oh.
- Are you ready? - We’ll see.
[groaning]
[chime] - Oh.
- Hey.
- Hello? - Who is this?
- Uh, this is EJ.
- Thank you for talking to us here.
Obviously, there’s a lot of questions we have,
but before we sort of start firing away,
I’d love to just give you an opportunity
to introduce yourself.
- Oh yeah. Well, my name’s EJ, and I’m 22.
I just wanna start by saying,
I’m sorry for using somebody else’s picture.
- That’s like the least of my concern, though.
You’ve gone to some pretty serious extent.
I don’t think you realize how much
it’s affected me as a person.
- I think this is just the first time
I’ve really cared about someone.
Before this, I really never dated anybody.
So I don’t know how to react to like my emotions,
so they kind of just run wild.
- You claim that you care about me,
but then you have no issues sending screenshots
of pictures that I sent you, trusting you,
to someone that I’m friends with.
How do you tell me that you care about me,
but then you do things
that show you have no respect for me?
- Sometimes, I don’t think before I act on stuff.
- Emma, I think you’re asking all the right questions.
I am very curious just to clear up a few basic questions.
- Go for it.
- EJ, you run the Instagram account
that Emma’s been talking to.
- Yeah. - And is it just you?
you’re the only person that she’s ever communicated with?
- No, I’m not the only person she’s communicated with.
- Okay. So can you clarify that for us?
- Well, I think the biggest person
that she’s communicated with is Jake,
the actual guy in the pictures.
He would use the Instagram to cheat on his girlfriend
so he wouldn’t have it traced back to him.
- But the picture on your Instagram was of Jake.
So that’s not a very good disguise account.
That doesn’t seem like it makes sense.
If you’re trying to sneakily talk to women as someone else,
why would you have an account with your picture on it?
- Well, his girlfriend is blocked on the page, so--
- That doesn’t really make sense.
Here’s where it gets really confusing.
You say you have real feelings for Emma.
Why on earth would you be okay
with Jake talking to Emma, the girl you like?
- He only talked to her a couple of times.
- But you just said a second ago
that the biggest person Emma had talked to was Jake.
- Well, in the--in the-- in the very beginning,
before I actually caught feelings for her.
- And then Kyle stole whose phone?
- My phone. He started texting Emma.
I didn’t know about it, and he did some pretty,
you know, [bleep, bleep].
- Why are you taking all the heat for this then?
- Yeah, where’s Kyle and where’s Jake?
- Just because they played football,
they didn’t wanna be involved or be embarrassed.
- How do you explain the Cameo?
If you know Jake,
then wouldn’t you just text Jake and be like,
"Yo bro, can you send me this video
for this girl I’m talking to?" He’s your boy.
So you would just hit him up and ask him.
- Yeah, but he wouldn’t do that.
- It just doesn’t make any sense.
So I’m gonna give you an opportunity
to just try that again,
because Emma doesn’t want to have talked to the real Jake.
That’s weird.
Also, it involves Jake and I don’t want people to think
that he’s some sort of weird... - Scumbag.
- Sleaze who’s using Finsta accounts to talk to girls.
It’s not fair to Jake if that’s not true.
So are you sure Jake used your Instagram account
to talk to girls, or is that the story
that you had made up and you’re sticking to it?
- No, that’s 100% the truth.
- Why don’t we get into
what happened with you reaching out to Tyler?
- And telling him that I was dead.
- What was that about?
- I don’t really know.
I don’t really have an answer for that.
I mean, acting out of anger.
- Why were you so angry?
- Just because I knew that we weren’t getting back together,
so I was hurt and I was just acting off my emotions.
- So why don’t we explain how Tyler came into possession
of her nudes that you sent him?
Why don’t we talk about that part?
- I don’t know, I just--
I was sending them to her friends, so I just felt like
it wouldn’t matter ’cause she wouldn’t care.
- She wouldn’t care if her friend had access
to nude photos of her?
Would you care if your nudes were sent about to your friends
or if someone was selling them?
- I never sold a nude.
- So you were not behind the fake Emma profile that was...
- He was. - Advertising nude photos
of her for sale?
- No. - Then why would you tell her
that you were selling her pictures online?
- Just because she wasn’t talking to me
so I just did it just to get her attention.
- That doesn’t even begin to touch on the whole Elena...
- Right. Yeah. - Thing.
Which is another account that you made to talk to
and flirt with the guy that Emma was actually dating.
- No. - You’re not behind Elena?
- No, I don’t know. - Dude, listen.
The number that Emma gave you is our phone,
and when you texted, it came from elenaferriera@[bleep].com.
Why are your text messages coming from Elena Ferriera?
- I can’t explain.
- Well, there’s a technical explanation,
which is that you are signed in via that email.
I’m not faking it. That’s how you contacted us.
[tense music]
- I--I just--
- Look, EJ, this is awkward for all of us,
and props to you for even...
- Coming forward. - Coming on here.
You’ve made some decisions that I think you regret.
You’ve told a lot of lies and you know,
it’s uncomfortable to--to sort of own up to that.
But I think what you need to understand is that
we don’t necessarily need you to clear this up for us.
We know the truth.
We’re giving you an opportunity for your own sake,
so that you can feel better to say it for yourself.
And so that Emma can hear you say it,
and we can see if there’s a way to move past the negativity
and find some positive outcome.
- Emma just wants the truth, and she deserves the truth.
- It’s time to stop [bleep] us,
stop [bleep] yourself, and just be real.
[intense music]
- Stop [bleep] us, stop [bleep] yourself,
and just be real.
- Are you ready to tell the truth?
- Yeah.
- Okay. Let's start from the beginning
and just give us the truth, and just lay it out.
- How many profiles are out there?
- Right now I only have maybe three.
Maybe three. Yeah.
- So Elena is you?
- Yeah. - Yes.
- Right. - Okay.
- The fake Emma profile is you?
- Yeah.
- And then obviously the profile with Jake's picture
was also you the whole time?
- Yeah.
- Why does your phone number come back to a Tiana [bleep]?
- Oh, because it's my dead name.
- Mm-hmm.
- Mm-mm.
So not a fiancé? You've never been engaged?
- No. - Being that that is
your dead name, we will not be using it again.
Why not tell Emma that
when she asked you about the phone results?
- Just being scared to just be honest and be myself.
- Disclosure is a very difficult thing to do.
That is a very understandable thing.
But your behavior is not. It is pretty appalling
the things that you have put Emma through.
In your quest of being close to her,
you were trying to force Emma's hand
the way that you were sending her nudes out.
You're upset, so you send somebody's pictures out?
You don't have the right to do something like that,
because I'm sure you wouldn't want that done to you.
It is difficult to understand how someone who has decided
to live an authentic life
is leading such an inauthentic life on the side,
doing all of this. Like, come on.
- I think obviously I have anger issues.
So for me, like when I do certain things,
I don't even know that I'm doing them in the moment.
'Cause I'll do it, and then it'll be brought back up to me
and I'm like, "No, I didn't do that."
But I actually did do it.
I sort of just, I don't know, black out
I guess you could say,
- But what brings that anger on?
Was it something about Emma specifically?
- Yeah. Did I do something? - No. No.
Like I was just in too deep, like emotionally.
I think there was just like abandonment issues.
From like childhood to like now,
I don't really understand like how to handle people
just--just leaving, I guess.
- So you think the times when Emma may have threatened
to stop talking to you that could have triggered
sort of that anger or fear of abandonment
and--and then caused you
to retaliate with harsh words or threats?
- Yeah.
- Who do you have to talk to about that?
- Right now, I don't talk to anybody about this stuff.
- Well, I think that it's gonna be vital for you.
It will help you avoid
situations like this in the future.
So before you can have any relationships with anyone,
and before you can truly live in authentic life
you gotta start talking to somebody professionally
about the things that you're feeling on the inside.
Until you unlock some of what's going on in here,
it's gonna fester in your life
and you're never gonna be able to just live freely.
- I agree. - Okay.
- You're not alone, and you deserve to find somebody
who accepts you and loves you for you.
That's what we want for you.
But it's not gonna be with Emma.
You are going to have to let her go.
You are not to text her, hound her,
text anybody in her life.
Send pictures of her to anyone--that is inappropriate.
It's out of [bleep] line. You can't do that anymore.
- I just think at this point
there's been too much damage done
where I--I can't really offer you anything anymore.
I can't be in contact with you.
- That's understandable.
- It would be in everyone's best interest
if you close any existing profiles that you've created.
- And deleting the photos of Emma.
- Please.
- Got it.
- Thank you for coming forward and being honest,
and explaining things to me. It definitely has helped a lot.
I don't think you're necessary a bad person.
I just think you made bad decisions.
- Thanks.
- All right, EJ. - I wish you the best.
- Good luck. - Take care.
- Thanks again. - Bye.
- Oh man.
- It doesn't feel like it ended on a positive note,
but it does feel like it ended.
- No, I was going to say
it definitely feels like it's ended
- And now, hopefully,
you can move forward and meet people in your real life.
- I appreciate all the help that you guys provided me with.
- Got your back, girl.
- Good luck with everything.
- Thank you, guys.
- See ya. - Bye.
- ♪ I been up late thinkin' 'bout you, girl ♪
♪ Thinkin' 'bout you, girl, thinkin' 'bout you, girl ♪
♪ I can't stay here knowin' that it's true 'cause ♪
♪ I know I know I know ♪
♪ We can't go back ♪
♪ ♪
♪ For we both, we both, we both deserve the best ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I wish you well ♪
- We got Gabby. She gets this message from Kendrick.
They get closer and closer.
- He talked about, "Oh, I wanna be with you."
But he got shot, and he died. It definitely hit me hard.
- That's him right there! - What?
- Can I have a moment?
- It's like a real life spamming mail.
[doorbell sound] - Someone here?
Oh, hello?