Speaker 1: Hi, guys, and I're welcome back to another episode of
Speaker 1: Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany, and holy dick,
Speaker 1: we have an episode for you today. Holy dick.
Speaker 2: I mean it's better than Pickle Nicole. We've updated, Holy dick. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's roll with that.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean we've been teasing this episode for like
Speaker 1: I mean it's literally three days. Yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: maybe like a week, I guess. But we have the
Speaker 1: two women from Tinder Swindler joining us, Cecilia and Panilla,
Speaker 1: to share their story. I think it.
Speaker 2: Feels like it's been teased for a while because we
Speaker 2: got the confirmation that the girls were going to do
Speaker 2: the interview with us, so they hadn't done an interview
Speaker 2: here like that before, and we were so excited, but
Speaker 2: we know better than ever the until something's actually been done,
Speaker 2: until something signed on the dotted line, anything would happen.
Speaker 2: So we're super excited by the prospect, but we didn't
Speaker 2: all want to rave too much about it until we
Speaker 2: got them and we did speak to them. It is today,
Speaker 2: and we're so excited to bring you this chap. But
Speaker 2: we'll get into that in a hot second.
Speaker 1: Laura you've been making some rounds of the neighborhood. Is
Speaker 1: that correct? Guys, Making friends as an adult is really
Speaker 1: really hard. Why do you hard? But why do you
Speaker 1: need another friend? Yeah? But I also need friends that
Speaker 1: have kids, and more so, my kids need friends. It's
Speaker 1: probably more the case. But you know, as you guys
Speaker 1: all are very aware if you've listened to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Literally over the last month, I've moved into a new neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I have new neighbors, and yes.
Speaker 2: It generally happens when you move into a new neighbor
Speaker 2: We don't live on an acreage. And now I have
Speaker 2: your old neighbors. Mine new neighbors are your old neighbors.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So BRIT's new neighbors is a lovely Russian couple.
Speaker 1: They're like in there, maybe sixties, seventies, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't guess. He's already popped over to fix some
Speaker 1: stuff for me. He's an absolute legend. He's like the
Speaker 1: sort of man. He's a sort of neighbor that you
Speaker 1: want when you need things done. Well, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know I needed it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I went outside and there was one little thing
Speaker 2: that was broken, right, And I went outside just to
Speaker 2: look at it, and within two seconds he was there.
Speaker 2: He just popped up, Like what was that old TV
Speaker 2: show where you never see that you know, the neighbor.
Speaker 1: Like Flanders, No, you know that really popular show.
Speaker 2: This is all the youngins are not going to know.
Speaker 2: You know where he used to pop Tim the toll
Speaker 2: Man Taylor. I seriously felt like we were playing a
Speaker 2: game of charades, right, do.
Speaker 1: You know Tim the tool Man Taylor?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you never watched it, and you never
Speaker 2: in like six years of the show, you never saw
Speaker 2: the neighbor's whole face. You only ever saw his eyes,
Speaker 2: but you always popped up.
Speaker 1: When you needed him. Not our Russian neighbor, though you
Speaker 1: see all his face. Anyway, he fixed some stuff. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so I went over to our neighbor's house. We took
Speaker 1: the kids. We took two bottles of wine, which I
Speaker 1: thought was maybe aggressive for four o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: I was like, do you go with one bottle or
Speaker 1: do you really like set in for an afternoon session
Speaker 1: with your neighbors, or do I take a cask? Because
Speaker 1: we took two bottles of wine a cheese plate, and
Speaker 1: how did this invitation come about? Did like they put
Speaker 1: a little invite in your letter box, did you put
Speaker 1: it in theirs?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: So Matt met the neighbors on the street like when
Speaker 1: we first moved in, and to be fair, we live
Speaker 1: in a very it's a very community street, which is
Speaker 1: weird to me because I didn't think that people these
Speaker 1: days even spoke to their neighbors like and no, it's weird,
Speaker 1: Like I lived in an apartment building where hardly anyone
Speaker 1: knows each other prior and then we moved into the
Speaker 1: new house and the neighbors popped over with a bunch
Speaker 1: of flowers. The ones across the street have asked us
Speaker 1: out for a lunch anyway, So there's like, guys, I
Speaker 1: love you, but I don't have time for this. There's
Speaker 1: a street WhatsApp group. No, it's amazing. There's literally a
Speaker 1: street WhatsApp group and everyone has kids. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, I really feel like I've found my people.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, we're going for lunch. So
Speaker 1: we rocked out with these two bottles of wine, sat
Speaker 1: down and it's just it's okay. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm the only person. I'm sure i'm not, but it's
Speaker 1: just so weird as an adult knowing that you're meeting
Speaker 1: someone and being like, are we gonna be friends?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Is that what this is?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: You're interviewing someone to be your friend? That's what we
Speaker 1: were doing. I hope I made the cut.
Speaker 2: IF's if she's listening? How do she know who you are?
Speaker 2: And you need the podcast?
Speaker 1: No idea? She had no idea. I was like in media, like,
Speaker 1: I've got a podcast, like and they were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not into culture and I was like, that's cool,
Speaker 1: I send you a link talk about relationships. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: she had no idea, which is kind of nice.
Speaker 2: The same age bracket kids are the same a little bit.
Speaker 1: Older kids are like seven and ten. I'm giving way
Speaker 1: too much information now, but yes, it was just it
Speaker 1: was one of those moments where I felt like, as
Speaker 1: an adult, it's not that often where you get put
Speaker 1: into a situation where you actually are like, Okay, are
Speaker 1: we going to be friends? Am I making a new
Speaker 1: friend right now? And it's so hard.
Speaker 2: Being an adult is hard, and making friends as an
Speaker 2: adult is hard, And you know, we talk about it
Speaker 2: on the podcast a lot, and we get a lot
Speaker 2: of questions from you guys. Saying, you know, I need
Speaker 2: to make new friends.
Speaker 1: How do I do it?
Speaker 2: Which is, you know, we've got these groups now, these
Speaker 2: meetup groups that you guys have created, and so many
Speaker 2: people have made insanely good friends from that, which I'm
Speaker 2: all about.
Speaker 1: But you also just have to take a punt, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we had no idea whether we would connect, Like obviously
Speaker 1: we have kids, we live in the same street, that's
Speaker 1: all we knew about each other. And so you have
Speaker 1: to put yourself out there, you know, you invite people
Speaker 1: around you go and do things that are outside your
Speaker 1: comfort zone and maybe it'll click, maybe it won't clear.
Speaker 1: But it was just like this real moment where I
Speaker 1: was like, this is what adults do.
Speaker 2: I think it's way easier to make friends when you
Speaker 2: have kids one hundred pcent because you have something to
Speaker 2: you have an excuse to meet up, and then if
Speaker 2: you click, it's great. You can say, oh, let's continue
Speaker 2: to meet up, and if you don't, you like, we're
Speaker 2: busy forever kids.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So it's like a woman when I look at back
Speaker 2: at actually my best friend of my whole existence. We've
Speaker 2: been best friends since we were five years old, since kindergarten.
Speaker 2: You guys do the math. So I think I'm thirty
Speaker 2: five this year. Let me take that back. I'm still
Speaker 2: thirty four.
Speaker 1: I love that. Like Daily Mail always reports that you're
Speaker 1: thirty and they say that I'm thirty seven, literally almost
Speaker 1: the same. I've read that you No, I read nine
Speaker 1: yesterday you were thirty one. I meant to send it
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, you lost a few about fucking time.
Speaker 2: So her and I've been best friends since we're five
Speaker 2: years old, and our parents obviously met because of us, like,
Speaker 2: you know, let's have a playdate with our two kids,
Speaker 2: and then because of us, they've been best friends their
Speaker 2: entire life as well. So it is definitely an intro
Speaker 2: into a friendship. So if you are looking for a
Speaker 2: new friendship and you don't have kids, kids, maybe that's
Speaker 2: your problem.
Speaker 1: Go have some kids, Go make some friends. No, because
Speaker 1: when you have kids, all you then do is hang
Speaker 1: around and complain about your kids. It was a joke.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. I'm speaking of making friends though, Britt.
Speaker 1: I heard that you also made some friends this week.
Speaker 1: I made friend It was pretty funny. So I was
Speaker 1: on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 2: It was like my last night on the Gold Coast
Speaker 2: and I was out with my sister and a couple
Speaker 2: of friends. We're having some dreams. Were in Burley and
Speaker 2: the Burly Pavilion, you know that really cool big I
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm not cool and I'm not from Queensland.
Speaker 1: But it was all at the path.
Speaker 5: Do you know what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like icebergs. It's like their version of our icebergs,
Speaker 2: I guess. Anyway, having a great time, having a few drinks,
Speaker 2: very sober, and this girl walks up to me and
Speaker 2: she's on a mission and she's with a friend and
Speaker 2: she comes up to me and she's obviously very intoxicated.
Speaker 1: She's like, all right, I've been.
Speaker 2: Looking at you across the room for a very long
Speaker 2: time and I just had to come up. I wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna do it, but I had to come up and
Speaker 2: say hello. And I love the podcast. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, like I absolutely love hearing that.
Speaker 2: She's like, honestly, I cannot tell you.
Speaker 1: She was going on and on and I was my
Speaker 1: best compliment ever.
Speaker 2: And I was like, this is brilliant. And then her
Speaker 2: friend goes, why do't you tell her what you wanted
Speaker 2: to tell? Her, and I was like, oh no. In
Speaker 2: my head, I thought, I was like what And she
Speaker 2: looked at her friend. You know, when your friend's throwing
Speaker 2: you under the bus. She looked at her friend. She's like,
Speaker 2: don't you dare And her friend's like, just tell her,
Speaker 2: just tell her, tell her what you were googling? And
Speaker 2: I was like, heng and what were we googling? And
Speaker 2: I was like tell me, and she was beside herself.
Speaker 2: She's like, please don't like Sarah, please please, please don't
Speaker 2: do this to me. And I said just tell me,
Speaker 2: and she wouldn't tell me. So the friend pulls up
Speaker 2: Google shows it to me and it said is Brittany
Speaker 2: Hockley By. She showed me and the girl lily died
Speaker 2: and I absolutely lost it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, Okay, secrets out. I'm by.
Speaker 2: I was really hoping, She's like, I was really hoping
Speaker 2: there might be some article that said you're into women
Speaker 2: that I might have a chance. Anyway, I absolutely lost it.
Speaker 2: She's like, I just thought you just made me feel
Speaker 2: so comfortable all the time, and I want to make
Speaker 2: you feel comfortable too. She's like, you make me feel
Speaker 2: so like loved and comfortable and not alone. And I said, look,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to go down on you, but I
Speaker 2: will continue to make you feel comfortable on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Can we just say, like, for every person who's ever
Speaker 1: come up and introduced themselves or said that they love
Speaker 1: the podcast, it is like, we're such losers. It is
Speaker 1: the best thing to happen to us. It makes me
Speaker 1: so happy, Alex have a little spring in my staff
Speaker 1: as I leave that meeting. But guys, we wanted to
Speaker 1: before we get into the interview today with Cecilia and Panilla,
Speaker 1: we wanted to give you, guys a bit of a
Speaker 1: setup or like understanding if you haven't watched The Tinder Swindler.
Speaker 1: I mean, we did give you that homework, and we
Speaker 1: gave you plenty of notice, but we wanted to give
Speaker 1: you a bit of an idea about what happens the
Speaker 1: rundown on it, and then kind of what has progressed
Speaker 1: even since we've spoken to Cecilia and Panilla. We interviewed
Speaker 1: them last week, but there have been some developments in
Speaker 1: the story since the documentary came out and also since
Speaker 1: we interviewed them. Basically, for anybody, if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: The Tinder Swindler, it's a story about a man named
Speaker 1: Simon Levive. It's not his real name. His real name
Speaker 1: is Shiman Hayut, and he is an Israeli conman who
Speaker 1: has spent time in prison, one for being a con artist,
Speaker 1: but also for forging passports. Now, the two women who
Speaker 1: were interviewing, Cecilia and Panilla, they are at the forefront
Speaker 1: of this documentary, The Tinder Swindler, and they tell their
Speaker 1: story about how they were swindled literally out of hundreds
Speaker 1: and thousands of dollars because of Simon. So Simon feigned
Speaker 1: that he is the son of a diamond billionaire, a
Speaker 1: company called Led Diamonds. The whole thing was a setup.
Speaker 1: And when Brett first told me about this documentary, my
Speaker 1: initial response was like, how on earth, Like, how on
Speaker 1: earth could anyone believe such a fantastical light, Like how
Speaker 1: could you even pretend to be a billionaire unless you
Speaker 1: have the money to front the lifestyle to pretend to
Speaker 1: be a billionaire. But he had so many other women
Speaker 1: on the go. He had so much money that he
Speaker 1: had taken from these women up to what they think
Speaker 1: is an estimated ten million dollars. So he was living
Speaker 1: the lifestyle of a billionaire, and he was telling Cecilia
Speaker 1: and Panilla that he was in so much danger, that
Speaker 1: some diamond deals had gone badly, that people were after him,
Speaker 1: and that he couldn't use his credit cards because he
Speaker 1: being tracked. And what he actually did is he got Cecilia,
Speaker 1: who is his girlfriend at the time, one of many girlfriends,
Speaker 1: and she was completely unaware of this. He got her
Speaker 1: to open up her own credit cards, which he would
Speaker 1: then use as his credit cards because he was telling
Speaker 1: her that his were being tracked. Now, this is the
Speaker 1: start of such a truly harrowing story of how she
Speaker 1: was romantically conned. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 1: There's so much more to this story, and as the
Speaker 1: web of lies starts to unfold, you start to see
Speaker 1: how these different women are interconnected and where their stories
Speaker 1: actually crossover.
Speaker 2: It really is a catfish story on steroids.
Speaker 1: It's catfishing on a whole nother level. It's like, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that the deception to this level could exist,
Speaker 1: that people could go to this much trouble. And when
Speaker 1: I say this much trouble, I mean you'd have to
Speaker 1: watch the documentary if you haven't watched it.
Speaker 2: But one thing that I really wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: before we get in, and it is one thing that
Speaker 2: the women do speak about, Panilla and Cecilia, and they
Speaker 2: talk a lot about victim shaming and fall out of
Speaker 2: going public with their story and trying to make people
Speaker 2: aware of it. And they speak, you know, we spoke
Speaker 2: off camera as well off microphone, and there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people, a lot of victims that didn't want
Speaker 2: to put themselves out there because they were actually legitimately
Speaker 2: scared of their life. There were death threats from Simon.
Speaker 2: He had threatened their family and their friends, He knew
Speaker 2: where they lived, he would make threatening phone calls. So
Speaker 2: I one hundred percent understand why people wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: put themselves in that position any further.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that that was something that wasn't
Speaker 1: communicated that clearly on the documentary, is that Cecilia and
Speaker 1: Panilla were legitimately afraid for their lives. And I guess
Speaker 1: it comes back to this idea of the person that
Speaker 1: they thought he was, this person who they had known
Speaker 1: for years or for months or however long. I think
Speaker 1: Cecilia's story was a little bit shorter. Panilla had was
Speaker 1: Simon's best friend for over a year. They didn't know
Speaker 1: this man. The whole life that he had created was
Speaker 1: completely fabricated, so they didn't know what he was actually
Speaker 1: capable of, and he was threatening to hurt their family.
Speaker 1: He was threatening to kill them. He was telling them that, hey,
Speaker 1: he had like a hit out on their head. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine the amount of fear that you would be
Speaker 1: living in from that. I mean, Panilla had to get protection,
Speaker 1: she had to speak to policing, a witness, protection and
Speaker 1: things like that. It would be I can't.
Speaker 2: Even imagine how scared you would be thinking that this person,
Speaker 2: especially because you've see the documentary. You see him switch
Speaker 2: the second that he realizes that he's caught out and
Speaker 2: it's done, you see a whole different person, a very angry, aggressive, gaslighting,
Speaker 2: threatening person. And once you realize that this person, you
Speaker 2: have no idea who you are, You don't know what
Speaker 2: they're capable of. And they're literally calling your house saying,
Speaker 2: I know where you live, I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 2: As if you're not going to be petrified and what
Speaker 2: they said, and it really got to me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: So they've received a lot of love and a lot
Speaker 2: of support around the world since coming out with their story. Conversely,
Speaker 2: they have received a lot of hate and as well,
Speaker 2: like a lot of people saying, you're so stupid, you
Speaker 2: deserve it. How could you give up your money? You
Speaker 2: barely know him. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: they are victims in this story, and victim shaming is
Speaker 2: a real problem, and victim shaming has to stop. So
Speaker 2: you can have your opinion one hundred percent, but I
Speaker 2: implore you to keep an open mind and maybe opinion
Speaker 2: like you Laura, will slightly change after watching the documentary totally.
Speaker 1: And I think the one thing that I've found was
Speaker 1: so viscerally obvious to me in interviewing Cecily and Panilla,
Speaker 1: And I've never experienced this in interviewing anyone before. We've
Speaker 1: always had such an easy rapport with people that we've interviewed.
Speaker 1: But I could feel their defensiveness. And the reason why
Speaker 1: I could feel their defensiveness is because they have been
Speaker 1: conditioned to hate media because they just don't know how
Speaker 1: a story is going to spin. I mean, like, we
Speaker 1: know what that's like, we know what it's like to
Speaker 1: do in interview and then to see the article come
Speaker 1: out the next day, and all the things you said
Speaker 1: have been twisted in a way that isn't actually truthful
Speaker 1: to the storyline. And I feel so sorry for these
Speaker 1: women that they have not only experienced what they've experienced,
Speaker 1: but then they've had to go through the absolute circus
Speaker 1: that is the media, not just in Australia but throughout
Speaker 1: the world. This docu series has had over ten million downloads.
Speaker 1: It's one of the biggest trending Netflix series in the
Speaker 1: world at the moment. And they're not people who have
Speaker 1: been media trained, and they've just been churned through. And
Speaker 1: so not only have they gone through this traumatic experience,
Speaker 1: but now they're having to deal with the judgment that
Speaker 1: follows from that. And I just can't even imagine what
Speaker 1: that would be like for them.
Speaker 2: These women were with who they thought were their penguin,
Speaker 2: They were with someone that were moving in with they
Speaker 2: well they were they were in a relationship. Now the
Speaker 2: relationship wasn't real, but it was real to them.
Speaker 1: They didn't know that. So of course, when their partner
Speaker 1: of a year has someone out with a hit on
Speaker 1: their head and says, right now, in this second, I
Speaker 1: need this.
Speaker 2: Money or I'm dead. You're going to give them money.
Speaker 2: And I don't care what anyone says. If you're in
Speaker 2: that situation and your partner says it's life or death,
Speaker 2: you're going to give them money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that the other thing about this, like
Speaker 1: the last part that I think is really important to
Speaker 1: keep perspective on, is that this isn't just one man
Speaker 1: who was a conmn. This was an organized Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 1: There were so many people who were actually employed and
Speaker 1: involved in this scam. Which when it's an organized operation
Speaker 1: like this and there's so many levels to the deceit,
Speaker 1: it's actually a job. It's someone's job to set out
Speaker 1: and do this. Simon is just doing his job, well,
Speaker 1: do you know, I mean, like you stand no chance.
Speaker 1: He's doing it the best. He's the best in the business.
Speaker 1: He's the best in the business. And if you were
Speaker 1: a victim to this, like, it's not one person who's
Speaker 1: deceived you, It is a full organization that has deceived you.
Speaker 1: And I think when you had that perspective, it's much
Speaker 1: easier to understand how these women were taken down, and
Speaker 1: not only how they were taken down, about how it
Speaker 1: wasn't just ten thousand dollars how it was literally hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars and it's plummeted these women into
Speaker 1: so much debt. There is a go fundme page for
Speaker 1: them which is helping them claw back some of the money.
Speaker 1: But the other part that we talk about in this
Speaker 1: interview is that it's so much more than just money,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's one thing that we get
Speaker 1: really hung up on. But the other side to this
Speaker 1: is the fact that these women had a sexual relationship
Speaker 1: with someone who they didn't know who he was, and
Speaker 1: they've given consent, but they've given consent to someone who
Speaker 1: isn't the person that they thought it was either, And
Speaker 1: it's just there's so many layers to this which are
Speaker 1: truly traumatic, and I think that, like I said, going
Speaker 1: back to the defensiveness that came through a little bit
Speaker 1: from Cecilia and Panilla, like I can't imagine what it
Speaker 1: would be like going through this situation and then having
Speaker 1: to defend why it happened to you. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it has come out that he has swindled men as
Speaker 1: well in businesses around Europe. This has been going on
Speaker 1: for a very very long time, and no one was
Speaker 1: safe totally and if anything, We should be celebrating the
Speaker 1: bravery of these women coming out and sharing their story
Speaker 1: and in doing so, protecting so many other women from
Speaker 1: experiencing the same thing.
Speaker 2: But Laura, I feel like we could talk about this forever.
Speaker 2: This whole episode could have just been you and me
Speaker 2: voicing our opinions on it. But we will get into
Speaker 2: that interview in just the hot second. We do have
Speaker 2: some other things to get to.
Speaker 1: First, though we have accidentally unfiltered. But first, brit there
Speaker 1: is something that you wanted to talk about and that
Speaker 1: you are well kind of ready to talk about. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you want to approach this, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how you want to I want to move
Speaker 1: to a last guy, yea, I would like to set
Speaker 1: everything on fire and just leave the floor is lover?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: Yay, Guys, I do want to give you an update.
Speaker 2: If you've been following along, I mean, my life for
Speaker 2: a little while, if you're in the Facebook discussion group,
Speaker 2: if you read any other news articles, you'll see that
Speaker 2: there has been some speculation for a little while about
Speaker 2: my relationship with Jordan. I've kept very quiet about that
Speaker 2: for a multitude of reasons, but it is time to
Speaker 2: give you guys a little update. I don't really know
Speaker 2: where to start, so I'm just going to start.
Speaker 1: Jordan and I.
Speaker 2: He came back for a really short period over the summer.
Speaker 2: He doesn't live here, He lives overseas, and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people forget that because I constantly get
Speaker 2: questions about why aren't you posting with Jordan and why
Speaker 2: an't there stories with Jordan. Firstly, Jordan does not live
Speaker 2: in Australia. He's here for like a total of seven
Speaker 2: weeks max a year throughout the year, and this year
Speaker 2: was no different. He also is a very private person,
Speaker 2: so I've told you that before, and he did come
Speaker 2: on the podcast and there were times that, you know,
Speaker 2: he was really happy to be featured in instagrams and
Speaker 2: he would feature me at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: He's very very private. You only need to go on
Speaker 2: his Instagram to see that. He hates social media. He
Speaker 2: really hates it. So he came back for the summer
Speaker 2: and we did spend a really nice, quiet summer together.
Speaker 1: We didn't post about each other. I mean we did.
Speaker 2: If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see a couple
Speaker 2: of stories here and there. But we just spent a
Speaker 2: really nice time together. And then it was hard because
Speaker 2: there are a lot of quote unquote reports that we
Speaker 2: had broken up a long time ago, that some horrible
Speaker 2: things were written by people that were claiming to be
Speaker 2: reporters and they absolutely aren't, and that was really tough
Speaker 2: to know that we were here being together and just
Speaker 2: because we hadn't put an Instagram up, people were making
Speaker 2: up stories. So that's one thing that we were battling.
Speaker 1: And also I guess at that time, you guys were
Speaker 1: figuring out your shit. It wasn't like it was smooth,
Speaker 1: easy sailing, like you know, you were together, but you
Speaker 1: were sorting out what does moving forward look like when
Speaker 1: there is no clear path for how you're going to
Speaker 1: be together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had some big life decisions that we were making,
Speaker 2: which was also why we were just keeping to ourselves
Speaker 2: because we didn't know what the future looked like for us.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so we did that and then you might
Speaker 2: have seen, probably about two weeks ago now someone you
Speaker 2: might have seen. I dropped him to the airport. He
Speaker 2: was going back for the next year of travel, and
Speaker 2: you know, we said goodbyes, but we actually said goodbye,
Speaker 2: We're good, I'm just gonna stop for a second because
Speaker 2: I'm not set.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're allowed to be upset, honey. So you're doing great,
Speaker 1: doing great. I know how hard this is for you
Speaker 1: to talk about, and something that I wanted to like
Speaker 1: was something I wanted to kind of say it to
Speaker 1: everyone who's listening to this, because yeah, I'm kind, because
Speaker 1: you're great. I know how much we share of our
Speaker 1: lives with you guys, and like, you are so welcome
Speaker 1: into our lives and we love sharing it with you.
Speaker 1: We love that we have this community. We love that
Speaker 1: you guys are so supportive of us. But it's really
Speaker 1: hard to see brit go through something that's been really
Speaker 1: really difficult over the last two weeks and for people
Speaker 1: to demand that she tell them where her relationship status
Speaker 1: is at, especially when Britt didn't know where her relationship
Speaker 1: status was at. And I guess the thing with us
Speaker 1: is we share so much of our lives, but we
Speaker 1: don't share it necessarily in real time because we still
Speaker 1: have to figure out how the fuck we feel about things,
Speaker 1: you know, even like me, when I had my miscarriage,
Speaker 1: I shared that several weeks to several months afterwards, once
Speaker 1: i'd compartmentalized it. I'd worked through that junk by myself.
Speaker 1: I was able to set some boundaries up and I
Speaker 1: could formulate how I felt about it, so then I
Speaker 1: could tell you how I felt about it. And I
Speaker 1: guess in this instance, like BRIT's breakup officially happened two
Speaker 1: weeks ago and she hasn't worked through how she feels
Speaker 1: about it yet. But because there has been so much
Speaker 1: reporting happening, we obviously want to share with you and
Speaker 1: tell you what's happening. We want you to have that
Speaker 1: authenticity and transparency. But I think at the same time,
Speaker 1: Britt needs the space and the privacy to really recover
Speaker 1: before she's able to speak about something, because this is
Speaker 1: not like she's fucking heartbroken. Yeah, it's been a really
Speaker 1: tough little while for me and Laura. Laura said, He's right, like,
Speaker 1: we're very open with you. If there's something we're not talking.
Speaker 2: About, it's for a reason, Like there is a reason
Speaker 2: we're deciding not to share something with you, and obviously
Speaker 2: the time will come where we will share it. But
Speaker 2: for me, I can't even explain how hard the last
Speaker 2: couple of weeks has been, Like I have not there's
Speaker 2: been days I didn't get out of bed. There's been
Speaker 2: days I couldn't stop crying. The girls would walk in
Speaker 2: and say hello, and I'd just start crying. And I
Speaker 2: think the reason is, I really really want to reiterate this.
Speaker 2: There is not a story here. There is nothing that
Speaker 2: has happened. It is. It is literally the most beautiful
Speaker 2: and amicable breakup. It was just two people that, you know,
Speaker 2: we thought were each other's penguins. We loved each other.
Speaker 2: Nothing happened, no one's done the wrong thing. It's purely
Speaker 2: we're at a point of life where we couldn't physically
Speaker 2: be together. His career and he's in the prime of
Speaker 2: his career, like he has so so much to go
Speaker 2: and so many years left, and he's only going to
Speaker 2: do amazing things.
Speaker 1: He can't be here.
Speaker 2: His job every week around them is a different city,
Speaker 2: literally every week of the year, he's in a different city.
Speaker 2: My career is here and I'm doing a lot and
Speaker 2: I can't travel with him this year. So we just
Speaker 2: had to decide what the future looks like, and we
Speaker 2: decided to just be really supportive of each other and
Speaker 2: go our separate ways. And we're still very very close,
Speaker 2: Like we absolutely adore each other. We respect each other
Speaker 2: more than anything, and we're still friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we still talk, but it is.
Speaker 2: Over, and we had to make that really hard decision.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's almost harder. You almost, in
Speaker 2: a weird way, wish you could hate the person because
Speaker 2: I feel like it's easier to get over.
Speaker 1: And I know that's a crazy thing and people probably
Speaker 1: will disagree with me. I would I rather hate him.
Speaker 1: I would rather be like, because then you forget him
Speaker 1: and you move on.
Speaker 2: But when you love someone and it's purely it was
Speaker 2: just a distance thing and a you know, I want
Speaker 2: the best for you, you want the best of me,
Speaker 2: and that means not being together anymore. That makes it
Speaker 2: so much harder. But we know at the end of
Speaker 2: the day that this is right for us at this time.
Speaker 1: I guess with that, like with distance, it makes it
Speaker 1: so hard to close the chapter. It makes it so
Speaker 1: hard to actually be accepting of like the finality of
Speaker 1: it all, because you're like, but the only thing stopping
Speaker 1: us from being great is this that we can't physically
Speaker 1: be together. And I think like the big part of this,
Speaker 1: and the part that's like so fucking hard, is that
Speaker 1: brit your career is so important to you, and you
Speaker 1: don't want to sacrifice your career to be in a relationship.
Speaker 1: And that is what would have to happen if there
Speaker 1: was no meeting in the middle, because unfortunately, like you
Speaker 1: can't be a professional sportsperson and just decide where you're
Speaker 1: going to be. You've got to follow the tour around
Speaker 1: and that's not where your life is. No, and he
Speaker 1: was so supportive of each other that he would never
Speaker 1: ask me to give up my career, and I would
Speaker 1: never ask him. It's just one of those things, and
Speaker 1: this is where we are, and maybe who knows, in
Speaker 1: a different lifetime it might have worked out. But for
Speaker 1: now we just have to accept that. I guess we
Speaker 1: thought were each other's penguins, like you guys followed along.
Speaker 1: I've been really open about that. He came on the
Speaker 1: podcast and said the same thing. We really truly believed
Speaker 1: that we found each other, and the hardest thing is
Speaker 1: to accept it. It's not.
Speaker 2: But I will be okay, and maybe down the track
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it more. Cook for now, but for now,
Speaker 2: like I'm so fine, guys, like okay. She says that
Speaker 2: as she's crying no, no, it's like we just wanted
Speaker 2: to feel Look, we just wanted to feel you in
Speaker 2: because honestly, it's been pretty shitty actually the people that
Speaker 2: have been hassling me for information from just random people,
Speaker 2: some listeners, news reporters, And I understand people want to know,
Speaker 2: but like Lauria said at the very beginning, you just
Speaker 2: got to give some people some space. People are real
Speaker 2: people and they're going through things in real time. So anyway,
Speaker 2: I am back on the market.
Speaker 1: But also I think, like for anybody who's going through
Speaker 1: a breakup, or anybody who's been through a hard breakup,
Speaker 1: like there are so many feelings of disappointment. There's feelings
Speaker 1: of failure. There's feelings of like, I can't believe this
Speaker 1: is happening when it's not where you expect that your
Speaker 1: life is going to be. And there's feelings of having
Speaker 1: to realign your identity and figure out, well who am
Speaker 1: I again? Now that I'm on my own, it's.
Speaker 2: A new chapter again, Like I'm now reassessing what I
Speaker 2: thought my future was, and I thought it was planned out.
Speaker 2: It's completely different now and I'm back to a place
Speaker 2: that I hadn't been in for a long time, and
Speaker 2: I'm relearning and I'm re trying to train my mind
Speaker 2: that it's okay that things change. And just because I
Speaker 2: thought something was going to be one way, it's okay
Speaker 2: that it's going another.
Speaker 1: And one of the big things that we said from
Speaker 1: the very beginning of doing this podcast is that some
Speaker 1: of the best things in life can come out of
Speaker 1: the worst situation.
Speaker 2: So run it right, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: You thought last year was you watched it out? It's
Speaker 1: coming anyway, guys, enough of the sad stuff. It is
Speaker 1: time for our favorite part of every episode, which is
Speaker 1: accidentally unfiltered, and I'm going to go first. While brick collections,
Speaker 1: you need to equally collect yourself. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: One night, I went out and hit the piss pretty hard.
Speaker 1: I'm talking vodka, tequila, and wine, you name it. I
Speaker 1: did it. Anyway, my worst nimement care mine too. Now
Speaker 1: I have three glasses of wine and I've got to
Speaker 1: hang over. Anyway, I had been checking this guy out
Speaker 1: all night and we ended up going home together. He
Speaker 1: was super sex and we had an amazing night. The
Speaker 1: next morning, I woke up in my bed and without
Speaker 1: a second thought, I let out the loudest, most rank
Speaker 1: fart I have ever done in my entire life. Not
Speaker 1: only that, it was like a grog fart, which we
Speaker 1: all I rolled over to find this guy I met
Speaker 1: the previous evening in my bed. You can imagine the
Speaker 1: fucking horror. I just, for a sa second thought I
Speaker 1: was in the safety and comfort of my own home
Speaker 1: completely even forgot that I had gone home with him.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, he very shortly left and we never
Speaker 1: saw each other again. The absolute monstrosity of the sound
Speaker 1: woke him up from his sleep. So she, how do
Speaker 1: you forget that someone else is in your bed? Well,
Speaker 1: I think if you've had a real bender, you could.
Speaker 1: I once, O K. This is oh God, I faba
Speaker 1: shouldn't share this, But I once when you got a
Speaker 1: guy whenever the guy at Uni we were dating. We'd
Speaker 1: been dating each other for quite a while, and he
Speaker 1: lived on campus at UNI, and I went back to
Speaker 1: his apartment, which I'd been done a hundred times, to
Speaker 1: his apartment and he had rearranged the apartment so his
Speaker 1: bed was on the other side of the room, like
Speaker 1: things were not where they usually were. So I don't
Speaker 1: do this anymore, and highly don't recommend it. I obviously
Speaker 1: drank too much in my UNI days, but I would
Speaker 1: like not remember parts of the night before, Like I
Speaker 1: had drunk way too much, and I woke up in
Speaker 1: his bed but facing a different wall to where I
Speaker 1: would normally face, so you didn't know what you were
Speaker 1: So I had no fucking idea where I was, and
Speaker 1: literally for about thirty seconds, I thought I had gone
Speaker 1: home with somebody else from the UNI apartment building, and
Speaker 1: so I was just laying in bed crying because I
Speaker 1: was too scared to roll over because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to see who it was. And he was like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? Why are you crying? And then I
Speaker 1: was like, it's just you know. Needless to say, that
Speaker 1: was literally the last time I saw him. He dumped
Speaker 1: me after that, no doubt. Absolutely. He was like, are
Speaker 1: you serious, Like you don't remember coming back here? And
Speaker 1: I definitely it was disgusting.
Speaker 2: I often wonder if it is a level of alcohol
Speaker 2: consumption or just how your body takes it, because I
Speaker 2: have friends like that. They're like completely like I don't
Speaker 2: remember a thing, and I always used to think they're
Speaker 2: making it up.
Speaker 1: I thought that's an.
Speaker 2: Excuse because I lacked out drunk.
Speaker 1: I have never even in.
Speaker 2: My most intoxicated I've been in my whole life, I've
Speaker 2: never forgotten something. I've never not known where I was.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if.
Speaker 2: There's like a way your body absorbs ourcohol or receives it.
Speaker 1: And do you know what the weird thing for me
Speaker 1: is is like it's not like I'm passed out. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking like blackout, as though like sloppy, you know,
Speaker 1: falling over in the gutter and need someone to help you.
Speaker 1: I will like have full conversations. I will put myself
Speaker 1: to bed, I'll have a shower, I'll brush my teeth,
Speaker 1: but will not remember that part of the night. For me,
Speaker 1: it's white wine. But anyway, you learn your lessons in
Speaker 1: your youth, and we certainly shouldn't do them. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm moving on.
Speaker 2: I kept ranting for weeks to my boyfriend about how
Speaker 2: I needed to clean out my wardrobe because the mess
Speaker 2: was fucking with me. I came home from work one
Speaker 2: day and to my surprise, my boyfriend had tied in
Speaker 2: my wardrobe.
Speaker 1: What a keeper. I could put a ring on that.
Speaker 2: Bless I was so happy that I got to avoid
Speaker 2: the shitty task later on, we're watching movie and he
Speaker 2: says to me, So, when I cleaned out your wardrobe,
Speaker 2: I found something in a pink handbag.
Speaker 1: I was so unsure of what it could have.
Speaker 2: Been, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Speaker 2: I had wanted to try anal with my ex and
Speaker 2: I thought, and I thought, I should buy some little
Speaker 2: butt trainers.
Speaker 1: So I bought two.
Speaker 2: The photos on the internet made them look like mini
Speaker 2: glue sticks. However, to my shock, when they arrived, there
Speaker 2: were two massive anal dildos exceeding the circumference of my arm.
Speaker 1: I'm so embarrassed. How would you stick that in your
Speaker 1: arm but your butt? That's why she didn't.
Speaker 2: I felt so shocked and embarrassed that he found these
Speaker 2: that I just panicked.
Speaker 1: In a moment. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: All I could think was to lie and say that
Speaker 2: I don't know what was in the pink bag, and
Speaker 2: that the bag wasn't mine.
Speaker 1: It wasn't mine. He asked me who the bag was,
Speaker 1: and in the heat of the moment, I said, my
Speaker 1: mother owned the pink bag. I convinced him that my.
Speaker 2: My mother owned two enormous anal dildos to this day,
Speaker 2: I have never confessed we're still together.
Speaker 1: He still thinks my mom has two big dildos. Are
Speaker 1: they called dildos if they're in it for your butt
Speaker 1: or are they called eight like butt plug?
Speaker 2: I'm just don't you messenger, I am literally well, she
Speaker 2: thought this is the problem. She thought she ordered these
Speaker 2: two butt plugs. But she's like something when I miss
Speaker 2: on the internet. I don't know if you press the
Speaker 2: wrong button in the checkout, but she got two big dildos.
Speaker 1: Feel like, if you're gonna list something like that, you
Speaker 1: really need a size scale, like have a penny or
Speaker 1: something next to it, so if people can see having
Speaker 1: the butt plug is She finished my.
Speaker 2: Saying, I hope I'm lend to heaven, but the odds
Speaker 2: aren't looking great.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Mom. Imagine if, like I mean, of all the
Speaker 1: people you.
Speaker 2: Could have thrown onto the bus in that moment, surely
Speaker 2: I would have gone my old flatmate or something, the
Speaker 2: poor mother.
Speaker 1: The poor Although the only thing worse than pretending they're
Speaker 1: your mum's butt plugs is actually finding your mum's steeldough.
Speaker 1: And that's the story for another accidentally unfiltered. It's a
Speaker 1: personal one.
Speaker 2: Oh my please, Okay, I have far that's you're gonna
Speaker 2: have dusch Mum's permision for that one.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the chat with Mila and Cecilia.
Speaker 2: This has got to be one of the interviews I
Speaker 2: have been the most excited to do. And when I
Speaker 2: did a little slippery slide into the DMS of the
Speaker 2: girls from the Tinder Swindler Cecilia and Panila, I was
Speaker 2: just blown away that I got a response saying that
Speaker 2: you were actually interested in coming on and telling your story.
Speaker 2: Because here in Australia, Laura and myself and literally the
Speaker 2: rest of the country have just been so obsessed and
Speaker 2: so enthralled, and I think just so gobsmacked by your story.
Speaker 2: So we are so excited to welcome both Cecilia and
Speaker 2: Panilla to Life on Cut. Ladies, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you, thank you. We're very happy to be here.
Speaker 1: It must be really difficult rehashing this conversation constantly and
Speaker 1: seeing how things have played out and the way that
Speaker 1: people talk about this story in media as well. But
Speaker 1: there's so much to this and we want to get
Speaker 1: into kind of where you guys are at now. Since
Speaker 1: the Netflix documentary has come out, but before we do,
Speaker 1: for anybody who's listening to this podcast and hasn't or
Speaker 1: doesn't know your full story yet, so Cilic, we wanted
Speaker 1: to start with yours because that's kind of where the
Speaker 1: documentary starts with. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about not just how you met Simon because obviously Tinder
Speaker 1: kind of gives that away, but what that first date
Speaker 1: was like for you and how things progressed really quickly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was on tender as a lot of other
Speaker 6: single people some years back, and then yeah, matched up
Speaker 6: with them and decided to go very quickly for a
Speaker 6: coffee because I could see that he was traveling a
Speaker 6: lot around. Met him matter hotel there, had a coffee,
Speaker 6: and then you wants to spend more time with me
Speaker 6: and asked if I wanted to continue being with them
Speaker 6: when they were going on a business trip to Sofia,
Speaker 6: and then I met his entire team. That was the
Speaker 6: first date, so we went a little trip together.
Speaker 2: So how long from literally when you swiped and matched
Speaker 2: until you met him for that coffee? Are we talking
Speaker 2: like a day?
Speaker 1: An hour? It was the time frame?
Speaker 6: Oh, it was a Saturday evening and then we met
Speaker 6: a Sunday morning, like ten thirty. So it was a
Speaker 6: very like weird timing for a date as well, Like
Speaker 6: so I wasn't expecting. I thought it was going to
Speaker 6: be a coffee and then I was going to continue
Speaker 6: writing my master thesis that so I brought my laptop
Speaker 6: and everything with me because I thought this would be
Speaker 6: one of those short dates, you know, not a private jet.
Speaker 5: Not a private jet.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a little trip. It was a sensationally
Speaker 1: like no expenses sped, bougie trip. Where did you end up?
Speaker 1: And how did that process of when he said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm going on this work trip, come with me. How
Speaker 1: did that all unfold?
Speaker 6: It's so interesting when you get like caught into his world,
Speaker 6: you know. So we met the entire team and so
Speaker 6: much going on. There's so many people, you know, so
Speaker 6: like drivers and like three four cars and where are
Speaker 6: they going? And where are we going? So we're going
Speaker 6: to sell fridges for lunch. First we had lunch actually
Speaker 6: the entire team before we went to there. So we
Speaker 6: were hanging out, all of us. So it was more like, Okay,
Speaker 6: you need to go home to get you to know
Speaker 6: your passport, you need to pack so driver can take
Speaker 6: you there. So it was really like it's organized chaos,
Speaker 6: and you could really see that Simon was the boss
Speaker 6: because everyone was.
Speaker 5: Like talking to him regarding decisions and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: And then we would drove out to the airport and
Speaker 6: then you were all waiting to board, you know, and
Speaker 6: it was like it's surreal, Like it was a military airport.
Speaker 6: So I've never been like at a small airport like
Speaker 6: that either.
Speaker 1: And also like you ended up getting on a private
Speaker 1: jet and this was kind of your first day it
Speaker 1: was on a private jet, sitting down with Simon and
Speaker 1: getting to know him more. But I guess that that's
Speaker 1: one part of the documentary that I don't think we
Speaker 1: saw so much as this idea that it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a date with him. There were so many more people
Speaker 1: that were involved in this, and it was the huge
Speaker 1: and elaborate setup that kind of gave you that reinforcement
Speaker 1: that made you go, oh, well, this is legit, this
Speaker 1: is safe. If there's so many other people that were
Speaker 1: involved in it at the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's why. And you could see the
Speaker 6: other there were other women there, like it was a
Speaker 6: female that was his private assistant. I was told, and
Speaker 6: you know that you're the baby's mother and a little dollar.
Speaker 6: So yes, I know a lot of people were very
Speaker 6: scared of me, and yes, I was thinking about it afterwards,
Speaker 6: but I think the safeness of seeing the people made me.
Speaker 6: It wasn't a trafficking schein, but I felt safe just
Speaker 6: seeing other people and especially the women.
Speaker 2: And we see on the plane, we see a tiny
Speaker 2: little snippet where you lean in and you give Simon
Speaker 2: a kiss on the cheek. Obviously there's been more of
Speaker 2: a connection that they didn't have time to portray, but
Speaker 2: you obviously felt very very comfortable and very safe there
Speaker 2: and like there was something really deep there immediately. Did
Speaker 2: you feel like this intense connection with him straight away?
Speaker 6: Yeah, He's very good at that, and like when we
Speaker 6: had kissed before, Like it's just a bit magl uft
Speaker 6: in a documentary because we did kiss before, and so
Speaker 6: like that little peck wasn't the first time. Like, and
Speaker 6: we were sitting right next to each other, and I'm
Speaker 6: a very like physical touch kind of girl when it
Speaker 6: comes to love language, and I like that and a
Speaker 6: lot of people don't, but I enjoy it, you know.
Speaker 6: So we did have an immediate connection. But this is
Speaker 6: what he's good at, you know, this is what he does.
Speaker 6: He makes you feel that you have that special connection
Speaker 6: and that you're very special. When I was watching the
Speaker 6: podcast that has come out, like it's so nice to
Speaker 6: see other people friends as well. It was like a
Speaker 6: business partner of his dad, I was saying that, or
Speaker 6: like friends of his Like, he makes it feel very
Speaker 6: special when you're with.
Speaker 2: Them, when everything in their life is so real and
Speaker 2: for you. And this is what I said to Laura
Speaker 2: when I told Laura to watch it. Anyone that has
Speaker 2: been a little bit skeptical, like how could these women
Speaker 2: fall for that when.
Speaker 1: His whole life.
Speaker 2: I mean immediately you're at a military airport, Like people
Speaker 2: don't just have access to that. You're at a military airport,
Speaker 2: you're on a private plane with all these people. There
Speaker 2: would be no part of the unit would ever think
Speaker 2: this can't be really is made up. There's no one
Speaker 2: in the world that could think that.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: But the thing is that there are so many people
Speaker 4: involved as well, I mean their entire team working against you.
Speaker 4: Maybe if you need one scammer or one francer, but
Speaker 4: here we had so many people involved that did an
Speaker 4: evil Trueman Show around you if you haven't seen the
Speaker 4: movie Trueman Show, but if you have your under stamina,
Speaker 4: mean it's like a theater that they do around you.
Speaker 1: So you've come to learn since this whole experience that
Speaker 1: actually the people were not necessarily also being scammed or
Speaker 1: they weren't also like as in employed by Simon, but
Speaker 1: they were all involved in this. They were all part
Speaker 1: of this whole elaborate creation.
Speaker 6: I think in different aspects to it. Because we know that,
Speaker 6: for example, some of the drivers didn't actually know that
Speaker 6: he wasn't Simon Vive, so he was involuntarily used because
Speaker 6: he's just been with him as Simon le Vibe. So
Speaker 6: when I asked about him, like, oh, something is such
Speaker 6: a great guy. It's one of my best clients and
Speaker 6: nicest clients, you know, but he didn't know.
Speaker 1: I think this is so interesting and so important. And
Speaker 1: I know that with the documentary it was pretty obvious
Speaker 1: that there were some people who were involved, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I really fully understood when watching it the
Speaker 1: depths of what of how many people may have been involved,
Speaker 1: or the depths of the involvement. And I guess when
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about these stories. When you hear
Speaker 1: about someone being romantically scammed, a lot of people's initial
Speaker 1: reaction is like, that would never happen to me, or
Speaker 1: how could you let that happen to yourself? But the
Speaker 1: more I watched your documentary and the more that your
Speaker 1: story unfolded, it made me realize that this could honestly
Speaker 1: happen to anyone. Now, Cecilia, one question I did want
Speaker 1: to ask you, and it was in regards to something
Speaker 1: that happened kind of early on in your relationship with
Speaker 1: Simon where you checked Tinder and you could see it.
Speaker 1: Showed it in the documentary. You could see that he
Speaker 1: was overseas at the time. He was in another country
Speaker 1: to where he said he was going to be, but
Speaker 1: he had also updated his Tinder profiles. Were there any
Speaker 1: red flags for you early on or was there anything
Speaker 1: that looking back you think I should have been more
Speaker 1: aware of this.
Speaker 6: That is the main thing with the documentary that is
Speaker 6: not true. Now is the first time I get the question,
Speaker 6: because I thank you so much for letting me respond
Speaker 6: to that. I would never ever have been with someone
Speaker 6: and I would never have Tinder. I would never have
Speaker 6: checked Tinder if I was in a relationship with someone
Speaker 6: who does that. If you're a couple with someone you don't,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't have Tinder. You delete Tinder, you don't have it.
Speaker 6: So no, I did not check everyone were a couple.
Speaker 6: That would be a huge red flag for me if
Speaker 6: I were in a relationship. I did it like when
Speaker 6: we just had our first dates and then I was
Speaker 6: really liking him, and you know how that is.
Speaker 5: And you go in and check, you know, have they
Speaker 5: updated a picture which is very raw, of course, And
Speaker 5: then I saw that he had. And then that's when
Speaker 5: I was like, what's that? At the start he swept you up.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: Of course I could have been a red flag that
Speaker 6: after some days, but I just took it that I
Speaker 6: had just seen him. We can all do it and then,
Speaker 6: but it is what it is. Hindsight is a gift,
Speaker 6: as I say, a lot of the times, what you
Speaker 6: should have seen. But that is maybe the one thing
Speaker 6: with the documentary I'm like, oh god, no, it did
Speaker 6: not happen that way.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you had the opportunity to clear
Speaker 1: that because obviously there'd be people watching that being like
Speaker 1: come on, read the scigns. But also so many women,
Speaker 1: and it's just people in general. Like I mean, when
Speaker 1: you love someone and when you believe them, there's no
Speaker 1: reason for you to doubt the things that they're saying.
Speaker 1: And also even in those instances when somebody is just
Speaker 1: I think it shows the level of empathy that somebody has.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad quality to want to believe someone
Speaker 1: that you're in love with or.
Speaker 6: Like infatuated kind of you know, I have to say,
Speaker 6: you know, he's a very magnetic person to be around.
Speaker 5: And you feel really special. You tried to give him
Speaker 5: that level of trust because he was very trusting with
Speaker 5: you as well with his store and what he was
Speaker 5: going through. So it became this.
Speaker 6: Very weird, vulnerable kind of relationship where both were opening up.
Speaker 2: I have a question and Panila, I'm not sure if
Speaker 2: you ever met her as well, So either one of you.
Speaker 2: I have a question that I'm just so enthralled about,
Speaker 2: and I think the world is. And this is the
Speaker 2: woman that played the role of his ex partner, the
Speaker 2: mother to his child, that came on the plane, that
Speaker 2: was always there and obviously he brought her in. I mean,
Speaker 2: for some women on a dating app, having a child
Speaker 2: and an ex relationship his baggage and they would have
Speaker 2: said no. But obviously he's used that as a way
Speaker 2: to get women to trust him because he's like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm a caring dad, I give all this money. Her
Speaker 2: role in this, she was correct. If I'm wrong, she
Speaker 2: actually was the next victim of his that helped put
Speaker 2: him away the first time. How did she get to
Speaker 2: a point where she was on his team when she
Speaker 2: went from putting him in jail to then working for him,
Speaker 2: Because that, to me is one of the biggest mysteries
Speaker 2: of Tinderswinla.
Speaker 3: Well, he did the same thing with me, so like
Speaker 3: when I caught him with his lies and called him
Speaker 3: out for being this France d and everything he had done,
Speaker 3: he tried to get me onto the scam as well.
Speaker 4: No way people tried to get me on instead of
Speaker 4: like having me as his anemy. So I think that
Speaker 4: she maybe still have been in love with him or
Speaker 4: just was being very egocentric and we're just thinking of
Speaker 4: herself because like something in secilly I have said all
Speaker 4: the time, like if you lived through something like this,
Speaker 4: I would never want to put any person in our shoes,
Speaker 4: And for so much to take that step to really
Speaker 4: know how it is like, and to take part of
Speaker 4: the scam, to try and hurt other people. I just like,
Speaker 4: I don't even know how this woman go to sleep
Speaker 4: at night.
Speaker 6: And it's more that I had a conversation with her
Speaker 6: back in twenty nineteen because he reached out to me,
Speaker 6: and she was so upset that I had said that
Speaker 6: she was part of Simon's team, because she meant that
Speaker 6: she was just there for in London once, you know,
Speaker 6: for her daughter to meet her dad. And I can
Speaker 6: underst like that's the main thing for me. Why were
Speaker 6: you even there? And then she's come with in the
Speaker 6: podcast that she says, well, there were so many girls
Speaker 6: that week and when I met him, like, how can
Speaker 6: I say to everyone? But how can you be there
Speaker 6: with a pure heart seeing all this woman who might
Speaker 6: be conned the same way you did, and be part
Speaker 6: of it? You know? You know you're being used for
Speaker 6: a reason. You know you're there for a reason. And
Speaker 6: she received so many gifts as well for her daughter
Speaker 6: that she knows. I know that I saw the gifts
Speaker 6: that she received. She knows they are from fraud. Can
Speaker 6: you imagine?
Speaker 2: Okay, So what happens is he's found out and then
Speaker 2: he thinks, Okay, I have two options. They're either going
Speaker 2: to be my enemies or well, I can try and
Speaker 2: get them on my team. They're going to say yes,
Speaker 2: this game will be better, or they say no and
Speaker 2: they're still my enemy. So he just thought, I'll try
Speaker 2: one last time to get her to join the team
Speaker 2: before she goes announce me even further.
Speaker 6: The thing is that her situation, I have to say,
Speaker 6: can you imagine, like we can judge her as much
Speaker 6: that I totally, but I can see it that I'm
Speaker 6: trying to have grace as well in this. Can you
Speaker 6: imagine she was with them and she was being scammed,
Speaker 6: She got pregned, she thought that she was in a
Speaker 6: true relationship, they were living together in Finland. Then you
Speaker 6: get pregnant, and then you realize that he was never
Speaker 6: the person you thought, and that he's a scammer, and
Speaker 6: you're pregnant with this, so you are forever connected and
Speaker 6: it's a bit of maybe Stockholm syndrome, it might be
Speaker 6: different types. I'm not excusing her, but I am trying
Speaker 6: my best, you know, to give people the grace that
Speaker 6: a lot of people are not giving me and us
Speaker 6: in this.
Speaker 5: But of course you should never have been there.
Speaker 1: Cecilia for you, at what point, like I feel like
Speaker 1: the documentary or maybe I had missed it. How quickly
Speaker 1: did things evolve for you and your relationship? Like how
Speaker 1: quickly was it that you were moving in together and
Speaker 1: just progressing the relationship, because it seemed like there was
Speaker 1: so much love bombing going on from his.
Speaker 6: Side incredibly, And I think, like the thing is that
Speaker 6: it was just so nice that he was that available,
Speaker 6: you know, that it was this morning. That's why I
Speaker 6: don't understand how he could do so many like at once,
Speaker 6: because it was like morning texts like mid they like whatever,
Speaker 6: when you calls, calls across the day, you know, evening.
Speaker 6: It was just it was like, yeah, love bombing to
Speaker 6: another level, you know, and with these voice notes of
Speaker 6: appreciation and the future, you know. And the thing is
Speaker 6: that for me, my love life has always been that
Speaker 6: the guys I like don't like me, and the guys
Speaker 6: that like me I don't like. So it was the
Speaker 6: first time in a very very long time where I
Speaker 6: was like, oh my god, I really like this guy.
Speaker 6: Makes me feel so good. It's so much energy, and
Speaker 6: I have to say, like a lot of the flashinists
Speaker 6: like I didn't see it that way, Like I saw
Speaker 6: him as a very funny.
Speaker 5: Caring guy.
Speaker 6: I wasn't part of these kind of I got the
Speaker 6: private jet trip and then it was done with me.
Speaker 1: You got your one jet, don't be agreed.
Speaker 5: I got that one jet. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Love bombing to another level which I haven't experienced before.
Speaker 6: And I am a person at falls very quickly, like
Speaker 6: if I found my match, I don't need to wait.
Speaker 6: And I think you saw that that I'm a very
Speaker 6: romantic person that is caring as well. You know.
Speaker 5: So you had a perfect the perfect.
Speaker 1: Victim experiencing the love bombing and then the I don't
Speaker 1: even know if you can describe it as toxicity, but
Speaker 1: like the absolute destruction that Simon caused in this relationship.
Speaker 1: Experiencing it and then watching it back in a Netflix
Speaker 1: documentary must have been an incredibly surreal experience for you.
Speaker 1: You mentioned something before, and I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that there was some things that happened in
Speaker 1: the documentary that were a little bit more for making
Speaker 1: a movie. It wasn't exactly as it had played out.
Speaker 1: Was there anything else about your story that when you
Speaker 1: watch the doco back, you were like that's not how
Speaker 1: that happened, or you didn't feel that it best represented
Speaker 1: what actually happened in real life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that's so much missed out. I had,
Speaker 4: for example, one person or one character that would just
Speaker 4: cut off the movie that had like a huge impact
Speaker 4: with me. And then also I think you had the
Speaker 4: part with the tinder. I think you reacted to that,
Speaker 4: and I reacted very strongly to where I traveled to Germany,
Speaker 4: because when I traveled to Germany, I tried to have
Speaker 4: him arrested, and that is the reason why I went.
Speaker 4: So an hour before the flight is leaving, I'm getting
Speaker 4: a call from the police that says we're not going
Speaker 4: to be able to do their arrest now, and there
Speaker 4: I make the decision that it's better I go anyway,
Speaker 4: maybe they can sort it out by tomorrow. While I'm there,
Speaker 4: I'm still having this like high trust that they are
Speaker 4: going to take him. So I spent two weeks with him,
Speaker 4: sitting with the police officers in like I don't think,
Speaker 4: like four or five countries, and just trying and working
Speaker 4: like full time just to try and have him arrested.
Speaker 2: And why did I think they didn't want to arrest
Speaker 2: in Panila, Like do you think they didn't feel like
Speaker 2: it was as big of a case as you guys
Speaker 2: were telling them it was, or what do you think
Speaker 2: the pushback was.
Speaker 4: There is a lot of reasons. I think I think
Speaker 4: he did it very smart. He separated all his cases
Speaker 4: in different type of countries to the EU in the
Speaker 4: European Union. And as the law works in the European
Speaker 4: Union is that for example, if Sweden makes the international
Speaker 4: arrestaurant for him, then all the other countries are allowed
Speaker 4: to bring their cases to that country. That means you
Speaker 4: have to find a prosecutor in one of these countries
Speaker 4: that want to touch these cases. Because it's quite complicated.
Speaker 4: There is a lot like we normally say, if it
Speaker 4: would have been tax money, they would have find him
Speaker 4: five minutes ago. So it's not about they have noon
Speaker 4: where he was the entire time. Like they knew where
Speaker 4: he was, They knew that he was going to go
Speaker 4: on that plane, so the second he went on the plane,
Speaker 4: they just they could do it. But the law is
Speaker 4: quite interesting sometimes and it is a question that means
Speaker 4: Cecilia asked so many times, and I think the entire
Speaker 4: world is us worried how come, he can still be
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was also not just so smart on
Speaker 1: the way he did it that it was spread out
Speaker 1: across the EU, but also the debt was under somebody
Speaker 1: else's name. The debt in the case for you, Cecilia,
Speaker 1: the credit cards were in your name. What point was
Speaker 1: it when you when you had handed over these credit
Speaker 1: cards it had your name in it, and he was
Speaker 1: racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, What
Speaker 1: point was it where you started to realize, maybe this
Speaker 1: money is not going to come back in, maybe he
Speaker 1: is not going to pay me or something. He's really
Speaker 1: wrong here.
Speaker 6: It's just difficult because he was making transactions that didn't
Speaker 6: come in, but he was always having a reason or
Speaker 6: when you call the police, I'm not sorry. When you
Speaker 6: were calling the banks, kind of they were like confirming
Speaker 6: whatever he was saying. For example, he was always making
Speaker 6: very large transactions, like half a million pounds was necessarily
Speaker 6: to make.
Speaker 5: That was kind of and then yeah.
Speaker 6: So I was still like thinking that something would come in,
Speaker 6: and he was in stilling that fear and that pressure.
Speaker 6: So it's kind of like when you're in that situation.
Speaker 6: He was either are you going to stop or is
Speaker 6: he going to die?
Speaker 5: Kind of.
Speaker 6: So I see a lot of people are saying, like
Speaker 6: making the memes like, oh, if my boyfriend asked me
Speaker 6: for money, I would just let him die. And I
Speaker 6: was like, well, if you're in that situation, you really
Speaker 6: think your boyfriend's going to die if you don't help him,
Speaker 6: that's a very not a good relationship to be. And
Speaker 6: he's very cunning in that aspect.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It's the emotional and the manipulation that if you don't
Speaker 6: help something is going to go wrong, which you can
Speaker 6: laugh about, yes, my enemies and stuff, but that was
Speaker 6: true at the time. So I think my first thing
Speaker 6: was like when I got the check and I called
Speaker 6: the bank and they said they couldn't cash the check.
Speaker 6: But then I talked to them and I called Simon
Speaker 6: and he was and that's have you heard when he
Speaker 6: becomes really mad that called eldd diamonds like they will confirm.
Speaker 6: And I was like, that would be very Do you
Speaker 6: understand how this guy is He's asking like that, if
Speaker 6: the bank is calling ld diamonds, they will confirm anyways,
Speaker 6: So and then I asked, like, why didn't it cash
Speaker 6: and they said, well, the sum is too large, like,
Speaker 6: we don't post so and as I saw the check
Speaker 6: is all good and they said, yes, the check is fine,
Speaker 6: there's nothing wrong with the check. So I was so
Speaker 6: scared for half an hour. The busse was kind of
Speaker 6: late in the game as well. After said this was
Speaker 6: not at the start. It was when I was starting
Speaker 6: to become really desperate to get in money because that
Speaker 6: creditor is after me. So you had that extra pressure
Speaker 6: of him pressuring you. They're pressuring you trying to fix this,
Speaker 6: you know. So he saved himself for a couple more
Speaker 6: extra weeks with that because I was like.
Speaker 5: Oh, the check is real.
Speaker 6: And then I got to know the banks don't check
Speaker 6: if the check is genuine. When they get a check,
Speaker 6: they don't check if it's genuine. No, they don't do that.
Speaker 6: We think banks did that right now, Well.
Speaker 2: I would have believed the bank as well. If the
Speaker 2: bank told me that no, the check's good, I would
Speaker 2: have believed that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And it was the same with my transactions, like they
Speaker 4: confirmed like all my transactions to like no, no, no,
Speaker 4: everything looks good. It's just gonna take a few days.
Speaker 4: I'm like, so everything is okay. They're like, yeah, so
Speaker 4: that's when I get to debraud it even more because
Speaker 4: I trusted the bag. And when you come to them
Speaker 4: afterwards like, hey, this wasn't a correct VIRU transfer, and
Speaker 4: they're like, oh, we can see if they're real or not.
Speaker 4: Like there are so many out there in the world
Speaker 4: that you're like, well, you sort of said.
Speaker 6: So you can always look back and you think, Okay,
Speaker 6: the transfers never came in.
Speaker 5: You know, why didn't you act sooner?
Speaker 6: And I just have to say it comes with the
Speaker 6: coursive nature and the manipulation of the can.
Speaker 5: Why are you still in it? Why are you still continuing?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 1: But I guess also at that point, you still believe
Speaker 1: that the person is the person that they've been saying
Speaker 1: they are for so long. And ye, something that we
Speaker 1: spoke about before we started the interview, and I think, like,
Speaker 1: we can talk about money till the cows come home.
Speaker 1: And I know that that's something that people prioritize and
Speaker 1: prize as being like the biggest thing that you've lost
Speaker 1: in this, But there is a bigger emotional conversation around
Speaker 1: having a relationship giving consent to someone who is completely
Speaker 1: not the person that they pretended to be and you
Speaker 1: experienced it on a friendship level, but Cecilia, you experienced
Speaker 1: it in a relationship level. And like, when you think
Speaker 1: that there is a whole other aspect to this where
Speaker 1: you're having sex with someone who is literally not the
Speaker 1: person they said they are, how do you recover from
Speaker 1: that side of things?
Speaker 6: When I was put into the psychiatric ward, I had
Speaker 6: to do different types of tests because I was scared,
Speaker 6: because you were thinking, if this guy can do this,
Speaker 6: he doesn't give a damn about you.
Speaker 5: You know, he could give.
Speaker 6: You everything on the planets. You know, you were super
Speaker 6: scared just for your own physical health. It's another level
Speaker 6: to it that I feel is like and just emotional
Speaker 6: corercion and the manipulation that they're doing to your mind
Speaker 6: regarding that they actually care about you being in reality,
Speaker 6: it's the total opposite. That you never believed that he
Speaker 6: could do this to you and then he was never
Speaker 6: that person.
Speaker 2: Panilla, what was your time frame so when you originally
Speaker 2: went on a date romantically, but you didn't feel like
Speaker 2: there was anything there and you what seems like a
Speaker 2: really close friendship. It seems like you were a bit
Speaker 2: of a go to for him. For a long time.
Speaker 2: What was the timeframe there? How long were you guys friends?
Speaker 1: And how long was it before he started to ask
Speaker 1: you for things?
Speaker 4: So I first matched with him, I think it was
Speaker 4: February twenty eighteen, and then I met him up like
Speaker 4: two weeks later, so and then he didn't start defrauding
Speaker 4: me until end of November, and then I found out
Speaker 4: the truth, like end of January twenty nineteen. So I
Speaker 4: was with him or for a.
Speaker 1: Year, Yeah, pretty long time.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can use the word grooming,
Speaker 2: but it's a very long manipulation. I guess in your case, Panilla.
Speaker 1: It sort of was.
Speaker 2: It sort of was like this slow grooming because he
Speaker 2: didn't ask you for anything for a long time. It's
Speaker 2: almost like he had you there as a backup, like
Speaker 2: I will love bomb these other women and if that
Speaker 2: all fails and I need something, I'll go to my
Speaker 2: inverted commas best friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, That's what I sort of felt like. And I
Speaker 4: actually sometimes I just have to laugh about things. I think,
Speaker 4: like sometimes I think he thought I was sitting on
Speaker 4: more money that I had.
Speaker 1: You're like, haha, sucker.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So like a little bit like because it sort
Speaker 4: of feels like it was like a carn on the car.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, because like I was traveling like everywhere,
Speaker 4: I did have cash and he did take my savings.
Speaker 4: But for me, it was just emotional things because like
Speaker 4: sometimes I could feel like I have cheating boyfriends before
Speaker 4: that have happened to me, and then it sort of
Speaker 4: can think that they could lie to me. But like
Speaker 4: when you sit in there with your best friend that
Speaker 4: you trust with everything, and I genuinely thought he was
Speaker 4: my best friend in this whole wide world. It was
Speaker 4: just I did not see it coming. I wasn't prepared
Speaker 4: for that, and they have basically used such a long
Speaker 4: time to manipulate me.
Speaker 1: What also happened is like, whilst Cecilia you were in
Speaker 1: the depths of giving over this money to him, whilst
Speaker 1: he was using your credit cards, was this the same
Speaker 1: time that Penela you were able to be try and
Speaker 1: you were actually with Simon. Did these things coincide at
Speaker 1: the same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean, like when Cecilia have this traumatic
Speaker 4: experience in Amsterdam where Peter the bodyguard comes in and
Speaker 4: they say they have a threat situation, this is an emergency,
Speaker 4: he needs to leave. He's coming to me to like
Speaker 4: spend the Easter with getting stock colms.
Speaker 2: This is something that's been sitting with me for a
Speaker 2: long time that I want to know about. Anyone that
Speaker 2: hasn't seen it, I'm just going to quickly thill you in.
Speaker 2: But when the asking for the money starts, it's because
Speaker 2: his enemies are after him. It's because he's in grave danger.
Speaker 1: And he actually sends.
Speaker 2: You video footage and photos from a hospital with his
Speaker 2: bodyguard where he's injured. They're bleeding, they've been cut.
Speaker 1: Did they actually do that to each other?
Speaker 2: Did they actually cut each other so that they could
Speaker 2: go to the hospital so they could take a photo.
Speaker 5: No, it actually happened.
Speaker 4: I have seen him in a club and he is
Speaker 4: a cocky asshole, so I think, to be honest, they
Speaker 4: have been out partying and basically got it into a
Speaker 4: fight in the club. That's what I think honestly happened,
Speaker 4: because I talk.
Speaker 6: To the producer and I think it happened like with me.
Speaker 6: It actually happened that night with me. And then he
Speaker 6: reused it because he wasn't in Copenhagen at the time,
Speaker 6: so like when he started using it and stuff, so
Speaker 6: it actually did happen. But I agree with Pranilla. Instead
Speaker 6: of being enemies, they were just being fucking cocky.
Speaker 2: You think he was just that good that he would
Speaker 2: just see the situation. He's like, Oh cool, we've got
Speaker 2: into a fight. Let's what can we do with this,
Speaker 2: Let's turn this into something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's so amazing how he did that on that
Speaker 6: night with me.
Speaker 5: You know those boys those Yeah, baby, we're in a
Speaker 5: war hoping. I would never have.
Speaker 6: Asked you for anything if it wasn't serious and all
Speaker 6: that shit and all the cards and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was like, yes, yes, this is real, this
Speaker 1: is real. I shouldn't laugh, and I'm not laughing.
Speaker 4: It's a defense mechanism we have. We have to laugh
Speaker 4: sometimes at ourself because we have been brainwashed and we're
Speaker 4: not brainwashed it, We're not in it. And I think
Speaker 4: it is a defense mechanism, is Cilia using. Sometimes we
Speaker 4: have to do it. It's not that we don't take
Speaker 4: it serious, but we have to do that just to
Speaker 4: be able to be normal humans.
Speaker 1: Sometimes as well, Panilla, when you were traveling with Simon,
Speaker 1: you were also traveling with Simon's girlfriend, which is a
Speaker 1: completely other woman, separate to Cecilia. Another woman who was
Speaker 1: involved in this and not involved in that. She was,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the scheme or part of the fraud,
Speaker 1: but she maybe was even defrauded herself. Did you have
Speaker 1: more of a relationship or more of a friendship with
Speaker 1: this other woman with the Simon's other girlfriend since you
Speaker 1: had had this time traveling together, more than what we
Speaker 1: saw in the documentary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, And to be honest, like when everything went down,
Speaker 4: it was her that I care the most about because
Speaker 4: we had like a genuine friendship and we could be
Speaker 4: on the phone and texts and things.
Speaker 5: Like that as well.
Speaker 4: So no, I felt really really bad for her when
Speaker 4: I found out the truth and everything and the things
Speaker 4: I have to understand. Like I mean, for example, like
Speaker 4: I Mekonos. I was already there and I just said,
Speaker 4: why don't you come here? Like I am Meconos. So
Speaker 4: it's not like he's been taking me on these trips
Speaker 4: and stuff because he was my friend. I don't want
Speaker 4: to have my friends like pay out my whole toade
Speaker 4: and I did have my own money back then, so
Speaker 4: I didn't really need him to pay anything for me.
Speaker 1: I guess I just have so much curiosity around this
Speaker 1: other woman who in your mind he was in a
Speaker 1: committed relationship, and whether or not she had also been
Speaker 1: scammed out of money at the same time, that.
Speaker 4: Is something that she has to answer on. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know what she had told me, but I know
Speaker 4: she not went in there with a bad intention or nothing,
Speaker 4: like she's a sweet girl. But I think she had
Speaker 4: to answer that. To be honest, I don't want to
Speaker 4: answer on her behalf.
Speaker 6: I think she's very properly brainwashed. Like I haven't had
Speaker 6: the same as her, but like it has gone some years.
Speaker 6: So I had some very contact with after everything came out,
Speaker 6: because I was like, you want to like reach out
Speaker 6: a hand to you, you know, but she's properly brainwashed.
Speaker 6: I think there are some more people that are falling
Speaker 6: even for there down than us.
Speaker 4: But when he and this other fraud girl did towards
Speaker 4: me and her when we were in Rome, that is
Speaker 4: on a whole other level. That was a spectacle. I
Speaker 4: went to meet up with him and his girlfriend in Rome,
Speaker 4: and then he also had one of his assistants there.
Speaker 4: She and Simon did a charade. They basically went to
Speaker 4: do like hidden meetings. She did explain how she'd been
Speaker 4: working for the company for so many years, but now
Speaker 4: she only works with him. She could tell everything about
Speaker 4: the company, she could tell everything about the family. She
Speaker 4: genuinely had a LinkedIn profile that said she worked for
Speaker 4: LED Diamonds, and then she was also connected with all
Speaker 4: these people. So in some way or another, she managed
Speaker 4: to get all these people and ELID Diamonds on her
Speaker 4: LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 1: But I think it also goes to show how many
Speaker 1: layers to this deception that there is. Going back to
Speaker 1: this victim blaming mentality, when people who were trapped and
Speaker 1: taken down by someone who is literally a professional comment
Speaker 1: it's something that can truly happen to anyone, And I
Speaker 1: really hope that like when somebody listens to this podcast,
Speaker 1: when they watch this documentary, when they see that you
Speaker 1: were both completely normal, wonderful women who have just been
Speaker 1: absolutely taken advantage of by someone who approached the relationships
Speaker 1: that he created with you with intent to do harm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that is the most like hurtful part
Speaker 4: that someone generally have done this, so many people to
Speaker 4: have went them there just to destroy your your life.
Speaker 4: That is like the very low points in life when
Speaker 4: you realize that you also have to understand that this
Speaker 4: is their full time job. This is like a running company.
Speaker 4: They're very good at their job.
Speaker 2: Did you guys, ever see him again after it unraveled
Speaker 2: and you had these fights? Was there every time that
Speaker 2: you came in contact with him again? Did you try
Speaker 2: to Did you ever want some form of closure? I
Speaker 2: know you obviously wanted your money back, but we've just
Speaker 2: spoken about there's so much more to this, so much
Speaker 2: more emotionally and soul crushing.
Speaker 1: Did you want to see him? Did you want that closure?
Speaker 4: Tried to like call me it. We did have a
Speaker 4: conversation in the end of the night, and that's when
Speaker 4: he tried to get me on board into the scams
Speaker 4: and I just refused to and I was just totally heartbroken.
Speaker 4: And then after I wouldn't agree on that, he started
Speaker 4: to threaten me. And then he just said, well, I
Speaker 4: gave you one option, and now I have already paid
Speaker 4: a price on your head so you can count your
Speaker 4: days to live, So thank you and bite basically, So,
Speaker 4: I mean I was scared for my life. I mean
Speaker 4: like this man, I mean I have talked to other
Speaker 4: women that have been in contact with him, like he
Speaker 4: even threatens to kill their children to silence them.
Speaker 1: They did not show that, did they.
Speaker 4: No, there is a lot that you haven't seen. You
Speaker 4: have seen our stories and what happened to us, and
Speaker 4: it was too much to fit into the movie is
Speaker 4: still one hour fifty and there's a lot that haven't
Speaker 4: been unfold what happened and what he had done.
Speaker 5: But I mean.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I can get like when people are oh, you're
Speaker 4: the king Smer, I was like, this is not a
Speaker 4: normal human. I mean, this is a man that would
Speaker 4: threaten to kill children and you and women and basically
Speaker 4: destroys people life.
Speaker 6: So no, because he drags in because like with the
Speaker 6: threat against me, and he said that we know you,
Speaker 6: we know your friends and family. So when you put
Speaker 6: in the Wii as well, you're wondering who else is
Speaker 6: out there? Like you get really really scared of it.
Speaker 6: So I reached out to him just one time in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty because I saw that he was you know,
Speaker 6: I had this lavish life and I hadn't had my
Speaker 6: closure because I just blocked him. I wasn't able to
Speaker 6: and you have that a bit, you know, he's never
Speaker 6: going to listen to you. So I wrote to him
Speaker 6: and then he just said that my life made him
Speaker 6: a superstar, that he's doing great in Israel, and that
Speaker 6: I'm the fraud and good luck, and that I criminal
Speaker 6: charges against me in Greece. So this guy is just
Speaker 6: it's no talking to him, it's no point of asking
Speaker 6: him anything.
Speaker 1: How do you even begin to recover or begin to
Speaker 1: like create safety for yourself when you are literally afraid
Speaker 1: for your life when something like this happens.
Speaker 4: Well, I got to hid an identity from the police
Speaker 4: here in Sweden and then I basically left the country.
Speaker 4: I left my house. I was scared even to see
Speaker 4: my friends, my family. I mean I left the country
Speaker 4: and just like I was in here, I was like
Speaker 4: faking my Instagram where I was like changing dates and
Speaker 4: times and things because I was so scared.
Speaker 6: And that's what he does to most of his victims.
Speaker 6: You know, they're not as strong as Pranilla in the
Speaker 6: end that she's actually doing going out and fighting the
Speaker 6: same with me, you know, like you get that threats
Speaker 6: and what do you do? Most people would never ever
Speaker 6: take that chance, but I think some of us are
Speaker 6: just like I just got that feeling like after being
Speaker 6: initially scared, that I can imagine that He's done this
Speaker 6: to a lot of people. I was thinking, and it
Speaker 6: stops now.
Speaker 4: But this is how he silenced them, and he secily
Speaker 4: just decided like it's not gonna I mean, like I
Speaker 4: was scared, but my fighting spirit never left that he
Speaker 4: was not going to get away with this. But of
Speaker 4: course I didn't want him like to find me.
Speaker 6: Because you don't know him anymore. What is he capable
Speaker 6: and his team? You know, because it's just not him?
Speaker 6: And I think that's so important. I realize could I
Speaker 6: never have done this by himself.
Speaker 1: Cecilia, Like I know you were so instrumental in the start,
Speaker 1: in like breaking this story, bringing some justice to wanting
Speaker 1: like public to know who this person is. When you
Speaker 1: are so frightened for your life, when there is so
Speaker 1: much writing on this and knowing that he has access
Speaker 1: to your friends and to your family, where do you
Speaker 1: get that strength from?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What is it in you that makes you go this
Speaker 1: is not okay? I need to make this as public
Speaker 1: as possible. It seems like such an incredible step for
Speaker 1: someone to take who's in your position.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I spent maybe a couple of weeks
Speaker 6: being fearful, you know, and just like what.
Speaker 5: Should I do?
Speaker 6: And then contacting police and they didn't care. I think
Speaker 6: it was more the feeling of not being taken seriously
Speaker 6: and knowing that he's still out there and that they're
Speaker 6: not going to do anything. No one wants to go
Speaker 6: to media with this type of story if they don't
Speaker 6: really have to.
Speaker 5: It's almost like, oh, you chose it. And I was like, well,
Speaker 5: what do you do in this situation?
Speaker 6: I wish I got justice from the system, that the
Speaker 6: police just did their job, but they wouldn't do it,
Speaker 6: So what do you do? And I was privileged enough
Speaker 6: of having a family that was really supporting. My mom
Speaker 6: was like my rock, and as long as you have
Speaker 6: some type of safety, then you can find the strength
Speaker 6: to do it.
Speaker 4: I don't think what people understand some times, like with
Speaker 4: me and Cecilia have done I mean like we basically
Speaker 4: forced them to do this in English. So when they
Speaker 4: contact me about this Norwegian girl, I was like, this
Speaker 4: is not just one Norwegian girl. I mean like I've
Speaker 4: seen him spend millions, a million that maybe covers half
Speaker 4: a month of his spendings. I mean like, if he's
Speaker 4: a fraud and he have done this, that means they
Speaker 4: have an entire team. They have done so much and
Speaker 4: we need to warn people. So I think what we wanted.
Speaker 4: We want to warn people who wanted to help people,
Speaker 4: so this doesn't happen to anyone else. It means Secilia
Speaker 4: just decided we don't care if we get drag because
Speaker 4: if we're going to cover our faces, it's not going
Speaker 4: to have the same impact. So let's just go there,
Speaker 4: hit us over with the bus, do whatever you want,
Speaker 4: but you have to also do the peace in English.
Speaker 4: If you don't do it in English, like I'm not
Speaker 4: even going to be there, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 4: And I can just remember me as Sicilia in London,
Speaker 4: sitting in her room and just sitting an email in
Speaker 4: this to every news outlet we can find and just like, Hi,
Speaker 4: do you want to write about this? Can you share
Speaker 4: this as long as you show his face? Like everywhere,
Speaker 4: We've been.
Speaker 6: Shocked by the response from journalists and stuff that are
Speaker 6: just eating up these guys what he's saying or what
Speaker 6: he's posting. And I'm just like, it's such a double
Speaker 6: stander there that I'm like, it's so weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have seen the double standard in media,
Speaker 1: and we have seen what you both of you have
Speaker 1: received in the comment section on social media and people's
Speaker 1: commentary around your story. But I think for the most part,
Speaker 1: most people who have seen your story understand the bravery
Speaker 1: that it takes that you have shared this, and in
Speaker 1: doing so, you have protected so many other women to
Speaker 1: falling victim to his fraud and his face. Simon's face
Speaker 1: is the most recognized face in the whole world at
Speaker 1: the moment because of this Netflix documentary.
Speaker 2: Let me just show you one thing right now on
Speaker 2: that this is So we're in Bondi Beach in Australia, Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 4: Oh god, I've.
Speaker 1: Seen this, yes, So I was walking down the street today.
Speaker 1: I'm going to show you guys.
Speaker 2: This poster is everywhere all over Sydney and over the East.
Speaker 1: Okay, can you see it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's so awesome, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It just says fuck the Tinder swindler.
Speaker 4: I had my Australian friends sending it to me, so
Speaker 4: I was dying when I saw it. I was like,
Speaker 4: this is so funny. I love Bondai beachrona for.
Speaker 1: Both of you. Cecilia Panilla like going through this experience
Speaker 1: and having your trust in someone completely crushed in the
Speaker 1: most just the most unbelievable way. How do you then, like,
Speaker 1: where are you guys at now in terms of like dating,
Speaker 1: your ability to trust people, even just making new friends.
Speaker 1: How has this impacted you in how you make and
Speaker 1: maintain your relationships.
Speaker 4: I can see that, like we talked about before, you
Speaker 4: can have good periods and bad periods. I can find
Speaker 4: some times when I'm in a bad period can be
Speaker 4: if someone does something nice towards me, I can sometimes
Speaker 4: think that they have like an evil hidden agenda behind it.
Speaker 4: But in the good times, I mean, like me and Secily,
Speaker 4: we also have like so much fun together. I mean,
Speaker 4: like we can't mistrust an entire world, Like then the
Speaker 4: world wouldn't be so nice to live in. I mean,
Speaker 4: like it's not we don't trust people, but maybe when
Speaker 4: we have bad periods.
Speaker 6: She had just taken so much from us, you know,
Speaker 6: and when it comes to relationships and stuff like I
Speaker 6: don't want to live my life being bitter and not
Speaker 6: trusting people, because then my entire life would be ruined.
Speaker 6: So but of course I've had a huge effect, and
Speaker 6: we've gone through a lot in the years after, so
Speaker 6: it hasn't been easy forming those deep relationships, but I
Speaker 6: hope with this and finally, like closing a bit of
Speaker 6: a chapter that I don't need to speak like that
Speaker 6: you can actually properly heal and form.
Speaker 5: Yeah, those relationships that you want to.
Speaker 4: And I think we also don't want to be a
Speaker 4: victim our entire life. I mean, like we went through
Speaker 4: a trauma. We still have effects from the trauma and
Speaker 4: really bad things happen to but it doesn't say who
Speaker 4: we are as a person. I mean, you're best friends.
Speaker 4: We want to go out and just just have fun
Speaker 4: and laugh about things sometimes as well, so it's not
Speaker 4: like we sit home and cry every day. I mean
Speaker 4: we still have fun.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. You absolutely can't let it define you, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you are not. And before I let
Speaker 2: you go, one last question that I think everyone wants
Speaker 2: to know. Are you both still on Tinder and or
Speaker 2: are you in love?
Speaker 1: Have you met anyone?
Speaker 4: I am not on any dating app, and I think
Speaker 4: I've been Tinder my entire life like four months. But
Speaker 4: I'm the famous Tinder woman, Okay.
Speaker 6: I am the tender experts, So of course I'm still
Speaker 6: on Tinder. But I am not like using it. I
Speaker 6: haven't even had time to say the least, So I
Speaker 6: just think it's more fascinating just to see if some
Speaker 6: of the men that I've matched up with are recognizing me.
Speaker 6: I think that's even more funnier. And see how awkward
Speaker 6: they're writing high I.
Speaker 5: See that you're the girl from the Tender Spindler.
Speaker 6: Very sorry it happened to you.
Speaker 2: Kinda should be sponsoring you, guys.
Speaker 1: Actually, maybe we'll get them to sponsor this.
Speaker 5: Airp you please.
Speaker 2: Cecilia and Panilla, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 2: with both incredible women that I'm just so grateful you
Speaker 2: came on here to tell your story today and I
Speaker 2: wish you nothing but the absolute best in life.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having us has such cool questions. It
Speaker 5: was a very different one, so it was really cool.
Speaker 1: Guys. We would normally get into our suck and suite,
Speaker 1: but there were and I mentioned it in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this episode. There have been some developments since we
Speaker 1: actually spoke to Cecilia and Panilla. In regards to Simon,
Speaker 1: he's come out with his own statement around the Netflix series. Firstly,
Speaker 1: he has said that the Netflix series is completely fabricated
Speaker 1: that he is not a fraud star. And I just think,
Speaker 1: like anybody who's watched that Netflix series, anyone who's spoken
Speaker 1: to Sicilia and Panilla, are going to believe their story. So, Bro,
Speaker 1: you've been in jail twice. You're going in jail twice,
Speaker 1: like literally, you have been criminally charged for this. Simon
Speaker 1: ended up serving five months of his almost two year sentence,
Speaker 1: which was off the back of him forging part Sports.
Speaker 1: So that happened, and that was all linked in to
Speaker 1: the time that Cecilia and Panilla were being scammed. He
Speaker 1: hasn't been held to accountability yet for the amount of
Speaker 1: money that he scammed out of these women, and I
Speaker 1: think that that is one of the huge and biggest
Speaker 1: tragedies of this But something that I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about quickly before we summed up everything is this idea
Speaker 1: about Netflix and with this huge mass consumption of the
Speaker 1: girl's story, of the women's story who have been conned,
Speaker 1: is the infamacy that comes with the Netflix series. So
Speaker 1: Simon's face and Simon's name is one of the most
Speaker 1: well known and easily recognizable face in the world at
Speaker 1: the moment, but he's also started to become and be
Speaker 1: able to earn an income off this. He has just
Speaker 1: signed a manager in the United States. He wants to
Speaker 1: go to Hollywood. He wants to go to Hollywood. He
Speaker 1: wants to start a dating show. He also is now
Speaker 1: to why.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sorry, I would that is the last
Speaker 2: show in history.
Speaker 1: I'd be going on.
Speaker 2: Imagine if you took dating advice from a con man
Speaker 2: like but people going, this is the this is the
Speaker 2: crazy thing.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt it. So cooked.
Speaker 2: Success is going to come to him in some fucked
Speaker 2: up roundabout way because we're obsessed with these people, because
Speaker 2: he's a horrible human that was sending death threats to people,
Speaker 2: and we're going to celebrate him and give him a platform.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I think is just so toxic.
Speaker 1: And I know that that's one of the points of
Speaker 1: conversation that really upset Cecilia and Panilla. We did ask
Speaker 1: them a little bit actually got edited out of the
Speaker 1: final interview because it was a bit emotional and heated.
Speaker 1: I asked Cecilia how she felt about the fact that
Speaker 1: Simon is still on TikTok and has amassed hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of followers, on TikTok. His Instagram's been taken down
Speaker 1: by Instagram, which is a huge step because usually Instagram
Speaker 1: never deletes anything. Tinder also and he's been deleted and
Speaker 1: blocked from opening up a Tinder, but he still has TikTok,
Speaker 1: and he also is now charging for cameos. And it
Speaker 1: must be just so infuriating on so many levels. Firstly,
Speaker 1: the fact that he is a con man. He's still
Speaker 1: perpetuating even to the media, that he's living this high life.
Speaker 1: And Cecilia and Pane don't believe that he's still a
Speaker 1: millionaire or a billionaire. Sicilian Panilla actually think that even
Speaker 1: the way he's perpetuating himself to media now is a scam.
Speaker 1: So the media have been scammed by his lives as well,
Speaker 1: because we're all buying into the fact that he's still
Speaker 1: living this luxurious and luscious high life. Whereas really, where
Speaker 1: would he be getting his income from? And that was
Speaker 1: the question that Cecily opposed. But also how can somebody
Speaker 1: who is literally a criminal, who is infamous for doing
Speaker 1: so much hurt and so much damage to these women
Speaker 1: be able to earn an income through a company and
Speaker 1: a platform like cameo and I just think that for
Speaker 1: Cameo to platform him, for any social media to be
Speaker 1: able to say yep, come here, and it glorifies what
Speaker 1: he's done. It kind of says, look what you can
Speaker 1: get away with, Look what you can achieve if you
Speaker 1: do this to other people. I just think it's truly unconscionable.
Speaker 2: Well, he also wants to start and like, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: this is going to be some direct competition. He also
Speaker 2: wants to start a dating podcast as well, like a
Speaker 2: relationship podcast. It's beyond me what advice people going to
Speaker 2: get from him, because there's no part of him that
Speaker 2: is there's nothing that is true.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant how or what
Speaker 1: he does. The fact is that he should not be
Speaker 1: able to earn an income or become famous because of
Speaker 1: what he's done to these women. And truly, I think
Speaker 1: that that is the one dark side of Netflix documentaries
Speaker 1: is that people who are criminals, who are deeply flawed,
Speaker 1: almost become immortalized because we're obsessed with the story.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing I don't understand too, is so he's
Speaker 2: just come out yesterday or the day before and said
Speaker 2: I'm not the Tindersminlller. I was just a single person
Speaker 2: that was trying to date. I didn't do any of
Speaker 2: the above. This is literally what he's saying. But when
Speaker 2: he made his reappearance on Instagram for the first time
Speaker 2: in TikTok after the documentary, he was posting photos with
Speaker 2: the hashtag you paid for this, so piculaining simon, what's
Speaker 2: it going to be. You're either going to claim and
Speaker 2: gloat that you did this hashtag you paid for this,
Speaker 2: or you're going to say it's not meaning you're going
Speaker 2: to deny it. But I think he's just completely playing
Speaker 2: the media like he's played every single person. It's horrible
Speaker 2: that he's making money and anyone quickly that doesn't know
Speaker 2: what Cameo is. It's just an account where people pay
Speaker 2: for personalized videos of famous people essentially, and he's he's
Speaker 2: charging around five hundred dollars for a personal video and
Speaker 2: up to fifteen hundred dollars for business videos. This is
Speaker 2: literally just of him recording himself for a couple of
Speaker 2: minutes and sending it to someone they're paying for it.
Speaker 2: So it's absolutely despicable. And one thing I did find.
Speaker 1: Really lobby Cameo to get him off the side, totally
Speaker 1: sus me off. But this is the thing.
Speaker 2: There is no company or person in the world right
Speaker 2: now that doesn't know who he is and what he
Speaker 2: has done. So for a company to turn a blind
Speaker 2: eye to that and let him do what he's doing
Speaker 2: and make money from it is very, very disappointed in
Speaker 2: my eyes.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing, isn't it, Like, yes, he
Speaker 1: has these platforms, is anybody buying Is anybody buying the cameos?
Speaker 1: We don't know one hundred percent they are, but they
Speaker 1: would be.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Last thing I wanted to add was just for anyone
Speaker 2: that is still thinking that these women are crazy and
Speaker 2: silly women to have done that. The Guardian reported that
Speaker 2: last year twenty twenty one, one year alone, romantic cons
Speaker 2: added up to one billion dollars one billion dollars. So
Speaker 2: it's not just these women that are being scammed. This
Speaker 2: is a real, real problem. Twenty twenty one, twelve months,
Speaker 2: a billion dollars just in romantic scam. So just think
Speaker 2: about that next time you're trying to judge someone, especially
Speaker 2: these women.
Speaker 1: But also on that. It just shows the depth of
Speaker 1: empathy that some people have and also how powerful wanting
Speaker 1: to be loved. Is how powerful wanting to be in
Speaker 1: a relationship, wanting someone to care about you and putting
Speaker 1: all of your love and energy and belief in somebody
Speaker 1: like that is powerful shit. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: we can exactly like you said earlier with the whole
Speaker 1: grace tame thing like blaming somebody for being the victim
Speaker 1: of someone else's cruelty is truly truly awful.
Speaker 2: Well, at the end of the day, people giving them
Speaker 2: a hard time for literally being trusting people and believing
Speaker 2: that they were in a relationship. But anyway, we hope
Speaker 2: you guys loved that. We hope you learned something from
Speaker 2: listening to these women. I know we absolutely did. There
Speaker 2: were definitely some eye opening moments, and I'm really grateful
Speaker 2: they came on the pod. Let's finish up the episode
Speaker 2: with our highlight now Lowlan, our suck, and our sweet
Speaker 2: of the week. I'm going to go first. My stuck
Speaker 2: broke out with Jordan Mabing on sweet Lolocano cute my sweet.
Speaker 1: I'm like, and everything is on fire and I want
Speaker 1: to put my life in the bin. But yay, let's
Speaker 1: talk about my sweet now. My coffee was nice. Fuck everything,
Speaker 1: my sweet fuck the world.
Speaker 2: Ah no, my sweet would be. It's been a really
Speaker 2: tough couple of weeks, so I'm really gonna have to
Speaker 2: dig deep here, Lauriel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you live in a beautiful new apartment.
Speaker 1: You've got an amazing steak, my sweet. I have a
Speaker 1: great co host. Yeah, all of them, both, my sweet is.
Speaker 1: I had so much satisfaction from building this new mansion
Speaker 1: kennel for Dalilah. I really went above and beyond to
Speaker 1: build her a little home. And it was really hard
Speaker 1: to build this kennel on my own from physically like
Speaker 1: trying to hold up these panels, like I didn't have
Speaker 1: enough hands trying to hold up these panels, use screwdrivers,
Speaker 1: put things in here and there. It kept falling over.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to give up because I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this, like I'm going to be
Speaker 2: this independent woman, don't need no man, you know, all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I nailed it. And the satisfaction I was like,
Speaker 1: is it? I was like, is this sad?
Speaker 2: How much satisfaction I have?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I think anybody listening to this who's like
Speaker 1: ever assembled a flat pack piece of furniture all by themselves,
Speaker 1: without the help of a man. It was like at
Speaker 1: the end they were like, yeah, I've got there. You
Speaker 1: got hey, I can do this all on my own,
Speaker 1: so I can completely relate to that. What's yours. My
Speaker 1: suck for the week is that we didn't pay our
Speaker 1: gas bill, and yesterday our gas was to stand off,
Speaker 1: which meant I've had two cold showers now and my
Speaker 1: children everything had to be miracles. Just don't turn my
Speaker 1: electricity off. Can I just add that, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: we had this discussion lots of times. I did tell
Speaker 1: you what was going to happen.
Speaker 6: We did.
Speaker 1: I also thought that they gave you a bit longer,
Speaker 1: like it's only been a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: You how your month, how much free gas you want?
Speaker 2: I mean you still have to pay for it, you
Speaker 2: just pay for it retrospectively. But yeah, energy is streler.
Speaker 2: They were fucking on it. Literally from the second we
Speaker 2: moved in.
Speaker 1: They were like, you don't live here, pay your gas,
Speaker 1: pay your new gas. Fuck you turn your gas so
Speaker 1: I got cameras in the house. Just a bit of
Speaker 1: a buffer would have been nice. Do you know what
Speaker 1: like a month? Adulting is so hard.
Speaker 2: Like people underestimate how hard it is to be an
Speaker 2: adult and when you.
Speaker 1: Literally every person listening to this podcast is doing it though,
Speaker 1: But that's what I mean. But like it's the things
Speaker 1: that you think about.
Speaker 2: And this is what I really realized, since you know,
Speaker 2: I've been on my own for so long in terms
Speaker 2: of living on my own, doing life, even with Jordan
Speaker 2: for the last year, like God, that was still my
Speaker 2: own the whole time, like he didn't live in another country.
Speaker 2: But I never really realized how much I relied on
Speaker 2: like my dad or the father thing or your parents
Speaker 2: for the things that you don't realize, like moving home.
Speaker 2: You don't just pick your furniture up and put it in.
Speaker 2: You've got to cancel everything, all the electricity, all the gas,
Speaker 2: all the internet. Then you've got to call up and
Speaker 2: then you've got to redirect it, and then you've got
Speaker 2: to make sure it's on in time. It's like you
Speaker 2: have to do so much stuff, and I'm like, just
Speaker 2: let me live, like I've got my bed, just let
Speaker 2: me live here.
Speaker 1: It's the admin. It's the life admin. Look, I mean,
Speaker 1: you still can't do I weaponized some confidence. I thought
Speaker 1: Matt was going to do it because I found that
Speaker 1: shit too hard and he didn't do it, and then
Speaker 1: no one did it, and so now we have no gas,
Speaker 1: which we have to work out today. But anyway, and
Speaker 1: my sweet for the week is just I like, Lolo
Speaker 1: is almost walking and she had kind of I'm out
Speaker 1: the other side of a really tricky phase. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I really spoke about it, but she went
Speaker 1: through this phase she just sucked for a while. Man,
Speaker 1: it was so hard. She just went through this phase
Speaker 1: of screaming about everything, and I just felt so beat down.
Speaker 1: And I know that everyone sees her on Instagram and
Speaker 1: says like she's the happiest baby. She truly wasn't. For
Speaker 1: a little while there, she was happy or she was screaming.
Speaker 1: She only had two settings, and it was like pretty
Speaker 1: soul crushing zero to one hundred real quick. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was like she was smiling or she was screaming, and
Speaker 1: that was it. There was no chill, there was no
Speaker 1: one between. And I just think maybe she was having
Speaker 1: a growth spurt. There was some weird changes, baby leaps
Speaker 1: or something happening. And now we're on the other side
Speaker 1: and I'm really enjoying being around her again. And I
Speaker 1: know that sounds horrible, but there was like a period
Speaker 1: there where I was like, wow, well I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to get up and do this parenting thing today and
Speaker 1: I just don't have it in me.
Speaker 2: But of course you're not going to enjoy And it's
Speaker 2: not that it's your child. It's not that you don't
Speaker 2: enjoy your child. And of course you're not going to
Speaker 2: enjoy being around and we'll just say something. Of course
Speaker 2: you're not going to enjoy being around something that incessantly screaming.
Speaker 1: At the top of their lung. You can call her
Speaker 1: a child, which I know, I add something I know,
Speaker 1: but like I mean, I mean anything. It's just say
Speaker 1: it was like a dog howling for six hours. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be around a child that is screaming.
Speaker 2: And it's not just that it was screaming for like
Speaker 2: an hour or half an hour, like she was going
Speaker 2: through a really hard time. It would be hours on end.
Speaker 2: So I don't think you need to feel bad for
Speaker 2: saying I need to step out for a bit of
Speaker 2: fresh air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think every mom goes through it, like
Speaker 1: these periods where you think I'm loving my time with
Speaker 1: my kids, like my kids are incredible, and then you
Speaker 1: have times where you're like, this is really challenging and
Speaker 1: I'm not as much as I love my children, I'm
Speaker 1: not enjoying their time as much as what I normally
Speaker 1: would because they are going through a difficult leap. Emotions
Speaker 1: are bigger than their bodies. Things are just a bit
Speaker 1: more challenging, and you kind of work through it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew it was a phase. I knew
Speaker 1: we would get through to the other side, but the
Speaker 1: phase was really hard, and I was feeling really really
Speaker 1: just emotionally beat down, and the unrelentingness of parenting sometimes
Speaker 1: just creeps up on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there were times that Laura would walk in
Speaker 2: and I was like, how are you and she would
Speaker 2: just cry to you. They were just well, we just
Speaker 2: both sit there and crying. We're like, this is so
Speaker 2: fucking funny in a not funny way, like we shouldn't
Speaker 2: be laughing, but we would cry laugh because we were
Speaker 2: just both at like our wits end. But can I
Speaker 2: just say saying, Britt, I know that this has been,
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways a hard episode for you,
Speaker 2: and I know that you aren't ready to talk about
Speaker 2: the full scope of things or like, you know, just
Speaker 2: even it doesn't come easily to talk about heartbreak when
Speaker 2: you're actually going through the heartbreak.
Speaker 1: I'm so fucking proud of you for how you had
Speaker 1: big things happening in your life and you have still
Speaker 1: showed up to the podcast. You have still put on
Speaker 1: you know, put on some makeup, fucking pulled on your
Speaker 1: pants and like.
Speaker 2: Sometimes there was no pants or no makeup, but just.
Speaker 1: Cracked on with it, you know, And as much as like,
Speaker 1: I know how hard that was, and I don't think
Speaker 1: you give yourself enough credit for just how how well
Speaker 1: you have managed to put things together when everything else
Speaker 1: has been going to shit. And I'm super proud of you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, love, because I do not feel like I've
Speaker 2: had it together.
Speaker 1: But here we are fake news. I pretended to be Okay,
Speaker 1: I am at night aar so yeah, she's an actress. Anyway, Guys,
Speaker 1: if you have loved the episode, please jump on leave
Speaker 1: us review. If you are a scullywag and you've been
Speaker 1: listening for so long and haven't left one yet, where
Speaker 1: you at? If you have an accidentally unfiltered story for us,
Speaker 1: or you want to join the podcast group, we have
Speaker 1: our Instagram which is Life Uncut Podcast, and we also
Speaker 1: have the Facebook community, so if you're an adult and
Speaker 1: you want to make adult friends, you can jump on there.
Speaker 1: It's called Life Uncut Discussion Group on Facebook and that
Speaker 1: is it from us Sell you mum tea, dad tea,
Speaker 1: dog tea friends and share the love because we love
Speaker 1: that I just had a testy pop