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Celeb News: BuzzFeed publishes lengthy Lucia Cole/Seriya/Nahla exposé
Member Since: 9/6/2012
Posts: 2,507
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BuzzFeed publishes lengthy Lucia Cole/Seriya/Nahla exposé
This week BuzzFeed published an exposé on ATRL's favorite chanteuse Lucia Cole (etc.):
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How A Serial Catfish Tricked Famous Men And Almost Got Away With It
Allegedly, Sean Combs cheated on his longtime girlfriend with a singer named Seriya. But Seriya doesn’t exist, and is one of several fake characters from a master catfisher.
On Dec. 11, 2015, R&B singer Cassie posted on her Instagram a photo of a sleeping baby with the meme “how I sleep knowing nobody’s cheating on me.” The meaning of the post seemed clear: She had broken up with her boyfriend of seven years, music mogul Diddy, and he had been cheating on her.
Just 12 days before, Bossip, a pop culture site with a focus on black celebrity gossip, ran an article, “Is Diddy Cheating On Cassie With This Fallen Bad Boy Blonde???” It showed flirty text messages between Diddy and a beautiful young singer on his label Bad Boy Records, Seriya Gebru.
The problem is, Seriya Gebru doesn’t exist. Seriya’s 178,000 Twitter followers are almost all bots. The album on iTunes by Seriya Gebru is actually a mix of songs by Dream, a girl group created by Diddy in the late ‘90s. The text messages must have been faked — even if someone were able to get ahold of Diddy using the persona of a sexy singer, Diddy would have been well aware that this person was not actually signed to the record label he owns.
t turns out Seriya Gebru is not an isolated case of a fake sexy chanteuse. She was just one of several characters created by a serial catfisher. BuzzFeed wrote about the catfisher this past July, when one of her characters, Lucia Cole, was revealed to be a fraud by the sleuthing of die-hard Ariana Grande stans. [See “How Teen Boys Uncovered The Greatest Catfish of our Time” and BuzzFeed’s Internet Explorer podcast episode for more on the story.]
These catfish characters share common themes: They are mostly up and coming singers, with albums on iTunes, Amazon, and Tidal that turn out to actually be music from other late ’90s/early ’00s pop singers, renamed with slightly altered song titles. They are often from Louisiana, and biracial. Two of the characters even used the same stolen photos of a real person.
But the most notable common thread all these characters share is a romantic relationship — real or rumored — with famous men. Some of these rumors have turned out to have insidious consequences.
When her character “Nahla Rowe” was found out, the Seriya Twitter account, which had been previously dormant, came back to life and admitted that she was behind all the accounts, and has plans to make new ones.
Here are the catfish accounts we know of:
Original Trey Songz Catfish
Occupation: unknown
Purported romance with: Trey Songz
Photos used: unknown
Dates active: pre-2014
When one of her other characters was exposed, the real person behind it posted a long apology on Twitter, saying that her reason for creating the character was an attempt to get back in touch with R&B singer Trey Songz, whom she had previous catfished and had an online romance with. When Trey broke it off after being frustrated that she’d never meet in person, she was desperate to get him back with a new character, a sexy singer. Trey Songz appears as a common thread throughout all the accounts — they all follow him on Twitter and have tweeted at him or had “fan” accounts (sock puppets also created by the catfish) tweet how Trey should duet with the singer. We don’t know for sure if this romance ever happened — it could easily have been a lie that she had successfully catfished Trey Songz. Reps for Songz did not reply to requests for comment.
Erica Mendez
Occupation: fitness coach
Purported romance with: Odell Beckham (not likely)
Photos used: model Dior Patterson
Dates active: spring 2014
Mendez ended up in the news in spring 2014 when rumors appeared in RadarOnline, apparently sourced from sports message boards, that she was the fiancé of NFL player Odell Beckham. Not only that, but she had discovered Beckham cheating on her with a pair of strippers. Beckham denied vigorously that any of this was true, and even went so far as to hire a private investigator to find out who was spreading these salacious rumors. Not long after, Mendez was exposed as a fake, and the New York Post ran a story, “Odell Beckham’s ‘fiancee’ was an elaborate internet hoax.”
Lucia Cole
Occupation: singer/songwriter
Music stolen from: early Jessica Simpson
Purported romance with: record executive Keith Nafly (didn’t happen), NFL player Kenny Vaccaro (probably didn’t happen, but she edited his Wikipedia page to say she was his girlfriend)
Actually talked to: NFL player Mychael Kendricks
Photos used: fashion designer Reese Crowell, and a second woman
Dates active: late 2014 until revealed July 2015
Cole was a pop singer whose album on iTunes was actually a Jessica Simpson album from 1999 (the song order and titles were slightly altered). She convinced Bossip to do an interview with her for their new music section. When I spoke to the managing editor of Bossip about how Cole was able to trick them, she said the writer did some standard fact-checking and there were a few red flags, but they decided to give her the benefit of the doubt since they like to support up and coming artists. One especially weird note is that one time Shaq tweeted about how great her music is and linked it — which means Shaq actually likes old Jessica Simpson albums.
Philadelphia Eagles player Mychael Kendricks got an email, sent to his manager, from someone claiming to be part of Lucia Cole’s “team” saying that Cole wanted him to appear in an upcoming music video of hers, and she was willing to pay — $16,000. It was the offseason, and a good chunk of change, so Kendricks agreed. After back and forth between their managers, Kendricks and Cole texted and talked on the phone. Cole opened up to him about her life, her past relationships, her difficult childhood. Kendricks’s degree is in social work from UC Berkeley, and its in his nature to want to help someone. “She really made me feel like she like a bruised bird,” he told BuzzFeed News over Facetime. “She tried to make me feel for her.”
But he was still interested in doing the music video since it was a business deal, and the fact that her photos were so easy on the eyes didn’t exactly hurt. “She’s bad, bro,” he said about Reese Crowell, the real woman behind Cole’s photos (“bad” meaning “hot”). Cole tried to flirt with him and asked him to send photos of himself, but he turned her down. He wanted to keep the relationship professional. “As a social worker, you understand how to keep barriers that are appropriate for both parties,” he explained.
Eventually, Cole was exposed as a fraud, and Kendricks’s friend sent him a link about it. “I was like, I knew something was weird as sin! I ****ing called it!” But he was also upset about it. “I was mad. I messaged her and said, ‘This is such a bitchy thing to do. I don’t know who you are on the other line, but you need some help.’”
Cole’s downfall was her hubris at the hands of Ariana Grande’s loyal fanbase, known as the Arianators. Cole had tweeted that she was going to do an upcoming collaboration with Grande, and the Arianators excitedly started looking into this new singer whom their idol endorsed. One fan, Leo Loera, was familiar with Jessica Simpson’s early work and recognized it was all a copy. Google reverse image search revealed the photos were of another woman, and word of a catfish spread on pop culture message boards like ATLR.net and Lipstick Alley. A Tumblr, Pop Culture Died in 2009, put all the pieces together and the post went viral. Lucia Cole was over.
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continue reading for lots more
Lucia's impact!
Not "ATLR.net" 
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Member Since: 9/6/2012
Posts: 2,507
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I'm listening to the podcast with the article... The opening is hilarious 
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
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Cole’s downfall was her hubris at the hands of Ariana Grande’s loyal fanbase, known as the Arianators.
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Our power 
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Member Since: 6/20/2012
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
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ATLR 
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
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ATLR.net 
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Member Since: 2/11/2008
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It's pretty well known that BuzzFeed writers are ATRLers, but don't do the good sis that wrong with "ATLR".
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ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 11/16/2004
Posts: 28,450
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Quote:
Originally posted by likeadarkparadise
Not "ATLR.net" |
On it.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
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Originally posted by heckinglovato
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no
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Member Since: 8/27/2011
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They forgot to mention that Lucia Cole stole not just Jessica Simpson songs but a song by Bre!
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