Catfish: The TV Show (2012–…): Season 8, Episode 21 - Jay & Anna - full transcript
Portland local Jay meets beautiful Vegas girl Anna. Nev and Kamie find that Anna may have secrets.
- We got Jay who's been talking to Anna.
She's from the Philippines, but lives in Vegas,
so she says. - She's witty, funny.
I think she's a hard worker. - But seems like
she's definitely currently living in the Philippines.
- If this girl is on the other side of the globe,
we may never find her.
- Let's shoot her a message.
- Oh, she's seen it. She's seen it.
She's seen it. All right. Get ready.
[computer dings] [gasps]
- What? - That's crazy.
[dramatic musical sting]
[upbeat music]
- Mmm, mmm, mmm.
I love breakfast.
This is a mukbang.
Isn't that what it's called? Mukbang or mukbong?
Mukbang?
[notification swoops]
[computer dings] Hello.
You can't hear me? [no audible dialogue]
[gasps] [no audible dialogue]
Yes, you can.
- Yeah, unfortunately, I can.
- I knew it. - [chuckles]
- How was your decompressing time in the Hamptons?
- Cleo's really getting under my skin lately.
- Why? - We are like oil and water.
- My girl. Wait till she turns 13.
- Oh, God. - Ooh.
Y'all about to be in the ring. - Yeah.
- Puberty is a weird thing. I don't know.
- Well, let's do another weird thing, then.
Let's dive on into another "Catfish" case.
We got something here from Jay.
Subject is "This has to be too good to be true."
"Hi, Nev and Kamie.
"My name is Jay, and I live just outside Portland, Oregon.
"Two months ago,
"a woman named Anna friended me on Facebook
and then messaged me."
- ♪ I don't need no explanation ♪
- "I was a little suspicious of her.
"She was cute, Filipino, and I had no connection to her.
"Anna turned out to be great."
- ♪ We've got that motivation ♪
♪ I don't need no explanation ♪
- "And I wouldn't be opposed
"to pursuing a relationship with her.
"The thing is..."
"I can't quite get a full read on her.
"After a month, she gave me her phone number.
"But when I called it,
"it went to some guy's voicemail.
♪ ♪
"She told me she accidentally gave me her boss's number."
- Okay. - "It seemed off.
"But she ended up giving me a different number.
"I texted it, but I never got a response back from her."
- ♪ I've been droppin' bombs all day long ♪
- "Even though we use Messenger,
"we haven't done a video call.
"But to be honest,
"I don't base my attraction to a woman on her looks.
"This might sound like a line of BS,
but I'm an incomplete quadriplegic."
- Wow.
- "So the physical isn't something
"I let define my life.
"Being a quadriplegic means
"that I have my guard up a little higher.
"It isn't easy to gain my trust,
"or to get me to open up.
"Even though Anna isn't the most forthcoming of people,
"I'd like to see if there's a future for Anna and I.
"Will you help me figure out if Anna is for real?
Thanks, Jay."
Wild. He's a incomplete quadriplegic,
which means most of his body does not work,
but maybe he has some movement abilities.
- Wow. If Anna is here to, like, break his heart,
I'm gonna have to...
For legal reasons, that was a joke.
- It just feels super messed up if that's what's happening.
- Let's talk to Jay... - Yeah.
- And see what he has to say.
"Hey, Jay. It's Nev and Kamie.
Come to our Zoom."
♪ ♪
[computer dings]
- Hey. - Hey.
- What's up? - What's up? How are you guys?
Oh, I'm so honored to have you guys,
professionals come and help me out
and figure out this situation.
- Before we get into all that, uh,
tell us a little about yourself; what do you do?
- Well, I've been editing skydiving videos.
- Whoa. - Lots of fun.
I get to see people jump out of planes
and see them scream.
- Oh, my God. Have you done it?
- Yeah. - Wait, you skydive?
- Oh, yeah. - That's amazing.
- I use, like, a couple adaptive devices.
One of them, like, wraps around my knees.
That helps me pull my knees up,
'cause I don't have movement
from anything from my collarbone down.
Because I had a spinal cord injury.
- How did you get your injury?
- I broke my C5-C6 vertebrae
diving into a lake when I was 17 years old.
At the time, I was training to become,
like, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.
I was saved, pulled out, and resuscitated
by a couple of people,
I actually don't know who they were.
I actually thought it was kind of ironic I did it that way,
because I was such a daredevil beforehand.
So I was like, "Oh, wow."
Just the way it goes sometimes. - Yeah.
But the fact that your able to sit here and, like,
be so positive about it and, like, lighthearted about it.
How was that transformation?
- I just had mentally decided to just, like, let go of stuff.
Like, it's not--
you know, not hold onto things that I really can't control.
Now it's trying to invent a way
to live a life that hasn't completely been lived before.
I get to pioneer a lot of random stuff.
So it's quite an opportunity to do things
that most people don't get to do.
- Amen.
- That's amazing. - Very cool.
So, yeah, so look. We just read your email.
We would just love to hear the whole story in your words.
- Anna hit me up about two months ago.
I have no idea how she found me.
And she's like, "Oh, I'm just looking to make friends."
I was suspicious, so I question her a little bit.
'Cause I'm not cool with people
stealing people's profiles.
I've had my friend's mom's identity stolen
when she passed away from cancer.
And she was used on Facebook in various situations.
So, like, I just wanted to make sure
that she wasn't doing that.
She said she wasn't,
and she just kind of made a joke out of it,
and I thought it was actually pretty funny.
So we just started talking.
♪ ♪
- So tell us about Anna. What's her deal?
She's a 22-year-old Filipino.
She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- She's super-hot.
- Well...
- [laughs] - She's hella cute.
But that's not my full-on interest.
She makes me laugh. She's intelligent.
There is something about her.
She's witty, funny. I think she's a hard worker.
And also, we have, like, a love of dancing together.
I found that she was, you know, creative.
Just normal. And I think normal is pretty freakin' awesome.
♪ ♪
- She lives in Vegas now,
but she grew up in the Philippines?
- Yes. - What does she do?
- She says she's a data analyst.
Something to deal with, like, managing data.
- Would you say that you talk pretty much every day?
- Every day, every other day for sure.
- But you guys have never talked on the phone?
- No. A month in, I had asked for her phone number, right?
And I ended up calling it, and it ended up being--
It went to some dude's voicemail.
[line beeping]
And so I was like, "Hey,
why did you give me the wrong phone number?"
And she was like, "Oh, I had my boss's phone number
"copy and pasted.
I didn't mean to do that."
And then gave me a second phone number.
I tried texted it.
And then no reply.
- That's so weird. - Yeah, it was super weird.
That's when I was like, "Hmm...
What's going on here?"
- Shady.
So we know she has a Facebook page, but what about--
I mean, hard to find a cute 22-year-old
who lives in Las Vegas that doesn't also have
an Instagram and a Snapchat and a TikTok
and a Twitter. - Right.
- Like, what about all that stuff?
- Well, I don't--I don't do TikTok.
I don't do Snapchat.
I hardly do Instagram.
- Hmm. So let me ask you,
have you guys sent photos back and forth?
Or videos at all or? - Yeah.
- Anything...
- Anything bad? No way.
- Just because you can't move from the collarbone down,
doesn't mean you can't nude from the collarbone down.
- Oh, hell yeah, I can--
I can do whatever I want.
But I move at the pace of my partner.
I--I feel like consent is the most important thing.
And I don't feel like pushing that issue because
- We stand a consent king.
- All right, so I want to see some of these
conversations that you guys have been having.
So can you plug in and share your screen
so we can scroll through?
- Is it working? Boom.
- Boom. Okay, whoa.
Wait a second. - Wait.
- She goes by Anna, but--
- Yeah, but it's Lyka, you know, just a username.
- All right, so I guess this is where it starts.
Yeah, July 23rd.
"I've had my friend's identity stolen."
Wow, so you really weren't kidding.
You got right into it. "After she died of cancer,
"so I always check. Especially when it's a cute girl.
Ooh. You started flirting right away.
- Ooh. - No, no, no. No, no, no.
No, that wasn't me flirting right away.
That was me saying, like, "No,
especially when it's a cute girl."
- Mm, okay, Jay.
- I'm getting ganged up on here, right?
- [laughs] - We have--we have two people
that are professionals at making people blush.
Anyways... - Well, anyway, I mean,
you were already kind of cautious and on the lookout...
- Mm-hmm. - And aware of the reality
that there are people out there
making fake profiles. - Yes.
- But there hasn't been any attempt to meet up, right?
- No, no, no.
Definitely COVID's been a thing, and also life.
- So all right. Let's see what we can figure out.
Send us what you have, and obviously, any photos.
- I'll send everything. Everything I find.
- Great. - Thank you. Peace out.
- Aw, Jay.
What do you think?
- My heart wants this to just be a nice friendship
between these two people that might be able to blossom
into something more,
but Jay's already raised the red flag,
and said there are some things about this girl
that feel a little off. - My vote is
Anna is lying about something.
And we need to figure out what.
- Okay, let's start this investigation.
Give us the recap, Kamie. - We got Jay.
Jay just so happens to be someone with quadriplegia.
He's been talking to Anna.
She's from the Philippines,
but lives in Vegas, so she says.
They haven't been able to get on the phone.
So they've been only communicating
on Facebook Messenger this whole entire time.
- Looks like he did send us an email. Okay, perfect.
All of Anna's info.
"Don't know if you want to read
"the rest of conversation with Anna,
but if you do, you can log into my Facebook."
Okay, Anna's Facebook page.
"And the first number I have she gave me,
"said it was her boss's number.
"The second number she gave me.
"I've attached the picture she sent me.
Thanks again for your help."
What do you want to do?
- Should we go back and look at
the fullness of their convos first?
- Okay, so we're in. All right, so--
- Oh, there's a lot of photos in there. Aw.
- They talk a lot. - Yeah.
"What is your job?"
- "I'm a data encoder for a family-owned company."
- Oh, and she listed the company.
"It's in my bio, called Empire Carbonell."
- Hmm. "Hey, Jay, just wondering
"if you want to edit some videos for me.
How much would you charge?"
- She said, "It's a reel for my boss's son.
I'm looking for someone to make him a demo reel."
Okay, so apparently, he's a vampire in this movie
that she sent him a trailer to.
- Doesn't this--I don't know.
I mean, is she trying to get him to edit videos
or have a relationship?
- It does feel weird.
So they're talking about meeting.
She says she's nervous. Says, "I actually want love."
- She said, "You're the first one who's actually
"still likes me for being me,
and that you don't just go after my looks."
- Oh, ooh. And then Jay says,
"Missed you today, hope you're well.
Send me a selfie. I miss your beautiful face."
- Aw. Jay really likes her.
- We're reading through these messages,
it all feels very nice, relatively innocent.
I think she was hoping he could edit the video for her.
But nothing weird there.
- Yeah, I don't--I don't know.
- So let's do an image search
at least just with the pictures that he sent us.
Here we go.
First picture, just a nice picture of her smiling.
Hmm. No hits.
All right, I'm going to try this one.
This is more of a glamour shot.
- Hmm. - No.
Here's another one.
Hmm. No hits. Man, nothing.
Damn. All right. So no hits on the pictures he sent us.
Let's do a little reverse phone search
for the number she says is actually her number.
[tense music]
"No name associated."
It does say it's a landline, though.
Which often means that it's a text app.
What else do we have?
Let's go to Anna's Facebook page.
Check it out.
- "Lyka."
- But Jay said she goes by Anna.
- Right.
- Okay, so it says where she works.
That name. Empire Carbonell.
Wait, this says it's a clothing brand.
Oh, well, I guess it could be,
and she does, like, data analysis for them.
- Hmm. - "Dancer at M Force."
Okay, yeah. Jay said she was into dancing.
- That must be her school in the Philippines.
- Well, let's look at these pictures.
♪ ♪
Now, these are old. This is from 2017.
♪ ♪
2017.
All of her posts are written-- - In Tagalog.
- So all of these posts are translated.
- Yeah, translated for Facebook into English.
- But okay. Let's do an Instagram search for her.
Lyka Dalangin.
Oh, wait a second. Here's a--here's an account.
- "Dance my heart out." - Lyka [bleep].
Different last name. - Same photo.
Search that.
- Just Google it? - Yeah.
♪ ♪
Lyka [bleep]. - Facebook.
- Oh, wait a second. Lyka [bleep].
Ooh, "dancer at M Force."
Wait, this is her.
- Ooh.
- Wait a second. Wait a second.
♪ ♪
"Studied at Philippines State. Dancer at M Force."
So that checks out.
From the Philippines. She says she's single.
I'm looking-- - Same photos.
- It's obviously the same person.
- Right. - Which is good
'cause it all kind of looks the same,
except here her name is different.
Different last name.
And also, the profile that Jay talks to goes by Anna.
- I don't know. I'm confused as to
which one could be legitimate and which one isn't.
- Unless they're both her.
I mean, he could be talking to this real girl
and just not know that she has a second page.
So hold on a second. Let's just look up this girl.
And just see.
M Force.
- That's the dance place that she said that she works at.
That matches up. Maybe this is the same girl.
- Yeah, let's go to this page.
♪ ♪
Wait, that's her for sure. - That's her on the right.
Yeah. - Yeah.
I mean, this, I think, is for sure
photos taken in the Philippines.
This was only December of last year, so, like,
I'm not sure when she's supposed to have moved here.
This person exists, and their name seems to be Lyka [bleep].
It's just interesting to me that
this page seems very active,
but this is not the page she messaged him from.
Let's see. Sometimes it helps to get up.
Maybe move around a little bit.
Lyka and Anna. Lyka and Anna.
In it together. How? Why?
- [chuckles]
There's definitely something fishy happening here.
I'm just not sure what it is.
All right, well, obviously there's a chance that
Anna is the girl she says she is.
And maybe her real name is Lyka [bleep],
but she calls herself Anna as, like, a safe name
to meet new people.
She's been honest with him.
That still feels like it's possible.
- Or maybe she's pretending that she lives in Vegas,
but maybe she still lives in the Philippines.
- Oh, interesting.
- Because most of her posts from just a year ago
are saying that she's in the Philippines.
- Right. So there's a chance
that everything she's saying is true.
There's a chance that most of what she's saying is true,
but maybe she doesn't live in Las Vegas.
There's a lot of question marks.
- I don't know how we're gonna get a concrete answer,
or who we're gonna get the answers from.
And if this girl is, like, on the other side of the globe,
we may never find her.
[upbeat music]
- Good morning.
Oh, wow.
He's in a Zen place.
Om. - Notice any changes?
- Very green.
- This morning, I went and got a bunch of new plants.
- Do you have names for any of them?
- Haven't named them yet.
- 'Cause you have to name the plants.
This is Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
- [chuckles]
- Well, I'm very into your new vibes.
- Yeah, I feel really good about it.
Anyway, let's get back into the story,
because we found so much weird stuff yesterday.
Well, that weird conversation about hiring him
to edit the video. I mean, it's just, you know.
There's this other Facebook page.
There's definitely a real chance that this girl
is who she says she is,
but she's not in the United States.
- Right. Which I don't know
if Jay would have a problem with that.
- Well, let's go find out. Let's bring Jay back in.
Yo, yo.
"We read for you in Zoom."
[notification wooshes] [computer dings]
- All right. - Hey.
- We're in. - How do you feel?
- I'm excited to just see who Anna is.
It's a nerve-racking little event,
but I'm excited to figure it out.
- All right, well, so we found some stuff.
- All right. Here we go.
- Some of it makes sense. Some of it doesn't make sense.
We just kind of all need to figure it out together.
- Okay. - All right.
So we went to her Facebook page
and just kind of looked through this a little bit.
Since she had wanted to hire you to work for her job,
we were like, okay, let's check out her job.
Empire Carbonell.
And when we go to it, it says it's a clothing brand.
We were confused 'cause she said she was in, like,
data analysis. - Exactly.
Yeah, no. I did notice that inconsistency too.
But then again, at the same time,
like, I'm not sure if everybody's updating
where they're working all the time. You know what I mean?
So, okay, so let's keep going.
Because the next thing we did was
we did a search for Lyka Dalangin on Instagram
and found this.
Obviously, it's the same girl.
But here, she calls herself Lyka [bleep].
Different last name. - Mm.
Has she ever mentioned or used the name [bleep]
for any reason? - No. Not at all.
- So now there's this new last name.
Then we did a search for Lyka [bleep],
and we got this Facebook page
which came up for a girl named Lyka [bleep].
[tense music]
- Definitely the same person. - Well, right. So this is weird
because there's this whole other profile
with the same girl.
The good news is that her story seems to be the same
as who you've been talking to.
She is obviously a dancer, she is from the Philippines.
So it could just be her.
But the problem is that whoever this girl is,
she's definitely living in the Philippines.
But most of the stuff Anna has told you
matches up with Lyka.
So you could be talking to the real girl,
she just may not be living in the States.
I don't know when she said she moved to Las Vegas,
but it would have had to have been pretty recently.
Did she say when she moved here?
- That was a question I did not ask, to be honest.
- Another gap we were trying to fill in is
can you tell us more about this situation
with the video editing?
'Cause it just seemed strange. - Right.
One of the things we noticed when you guys were talking
was that she had said,
"Just to show you one of my friend's movies."
- "Bloodthirst, vampire film."
She said he plays the vampire.
And he wanted, like, some reel stuff edited for himself.
- How did you end up leaving it with that whole job?
- I just told her I was way too busy.
Just, like, you know, like, I just literally couldn't do it.
- Oh, okay. - So.
- You want to just search the movie?
- Mm-hmm.
- So when I do a search on IMDB for "Blood[bleep],"
look, here's one that's got to be it.
- Is there a way to see who played the vampires?
Oh. "Vampire queen's follower number three.
"Vampire number ten."
- Wait. Let's see full cast.
- "Follower." - Oh, oh, oh!
Mars Carbonell. - Yeah. Yeah, there we go.
- Oh, [bleep]. "Vampire 11."
Mars Carbonell. Carbonell.
That's the same name as the company she worked for.
- Well, maybe it's his boss's son,
'cause didn't she say-- - Yeah, she did. She did.
It was her boss's son.
- Unbelievable. Wait a second.
This is a real guy. I mean, look, he's got a little--
What is it with this guy?
- Is he from the Philippines? - I don't know.
Let's see if we can find him.
"Mars Carbonell."
It comes up. Here's an Instagram.
There he is.
- So is this, like, her boss's son?
- I don't know. This weirdly fits into the story.
So this girl's story could be legit.
♪ ♪
There's a guy with the same last name
as her "boss,"
who is an actor, who was in a movie.
- We could easily ask him, do you know a Lyka? Anna?
Somebody? - Yeah. We should.
- I'm being bold. Let's do it. - All right.
"Hey, Mars.
"This is Nev from the MTV show 'Catfish.'
"We are working on a case involving your friend Lyka
"and could use your help.
Please give me a call."
All right. Sent.
- [sighs] This girl's a mystery.
- Yeah, this whole thing's a mystery.
Got my nerves all up in the air,
'cause I have no idea what's going on.
Freakin' Freddy Krueger could pop up
on the other side of this screen
for all I know right now.
- A vampire.
- Whoa, Mars just wrote back. - Oh, man.
"Sorry, can't talk about Lyka.
Don't want to get her in any trouble with visa stuff."
- What? - What?
That's crazy. - Wow.
- What the hell does he mean, "visa stuff"?
- "Sorry, can't talk about Lyka.
Don't want to get her in any trouble with visa stuff."
- What? - What?
- That's crazy. - Wow.
- What the hell does he mean, "visa stuff"?
- Could it be that Anna,
AKA Lyka, is here in the States?
Maybe she came on a student visa,
but it expired, and she's staying,
and she's working and she's not supposed to be,
and so she made this new profile
with a slightly more Americanized name, right?
Anna Dalangin instead of Lyka [bleep] or whatever,
and she's trying to make friends in the States
to marry... - Yeah.
- So that she can get a green card.
- Very possible.
- What's your gut telling you?
- My gut's telling me it's all a ploy.
Only because, like, we don't even know if they're in Vegas.
Like, the real profile
is in the Philippines. - Right.
- Well, then, I guess that makes me wonder
if she does live in the Philippines,
would that be a deal-breaker?
- I don't know. I think she's really cool.
I think the person I've been talking to is really cool.
If they were real, like, yeah,
it would be really cool to talk to them.
But here I am in a wheelchair, fully presenting all of my,
you know, flaws, hardships, and triumphs,
and you know, if someone's gonna hide...
- Yeah. - It's like, come on, man.
I'm putting my baggage out there.
You might as well do the same.
- Okay, so what do we do?
- Well, I don't think Mars
is going to tell us anything else.
Normally, there might be a few options,
but I feel like in this case, we only have one,
which is send a message to her Facebook page.
- Well, let's do it. Let's shoot her a message.
Let's invite her to the Zoom.
- I think we're still logged in to yours.
What should we say to her?
- Should we just tell her straight up?
Like, "I'm here with Nev and Kamie from 'Catfish.'"
"Hey, Anna.
"I know we've talked a lot about meeting up in the past.
"I enlisted the help of the hosts of an MTV show
"all about bringing Internet friends together.
"I'm on a Zoom right now with the hosts, Nev and Kamie,
and would love if you could join us."
- Perfect. - Send.
The check just means that it's sent,
but not seen, right? - Yes.
When the name pops down, that's when it's seen.
- The little picture next to it.
- Oh, it dropped, it dropped, it dropped, it dropped.
Boom. - [gasps] It did?
[gasps]It did.
Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
- Look, she's active. "Active on Messenger."
- Oh, [bleep].
- All right, she's reading it. She's reading it.
Oh, oh, oh! Bubbles.
[chuckles] - It's the triple bubbles.
[groans]
- Whoa. Okay. "Jay, you know I like you.
"I really do, but I don't think I'm ready for this.
Don't know if I can be on TV."
- Hmm.
- All right, I mean, that's fair.
I'm--I don't blame people for being nervous
or--or potentially not super into the idea of going on TV.
- You can say, "I know it's weird,
and unconventional." - Right. "I know it's
"a bit strange to meet like this,
"but I'm not sure if I'm comfortable
continuing our relationship..."
- "Till I see you."
I mean, if she really likes you,
she's not gonna want to stop talking to you...
- Yeah. - If this could mean
you guys will not be speaking after this.
- Yep.
- Oh, oh, we got bubbles.
We got bubbles. - Oh, my gosh.
We got bubbles. We got bubbles.
- [laughing]
- [gasps] Ooh.
Okay, "I know that I want to see you,
"but it's so hard for me to do this,
because I don't want to get in trouble with the government."
- Oh, my gosh. The plot thickens.
- What?
- What if she's here illegally
and she doesn't want to be outed for being here illegally.
- If she comes on a show
and shows that she's an illegal immigrant,
it may not be kosher with the rule of law.
- If you think you're gonna get in trouble
just video chatting, then there's no way
for us to even have
a in-person, like, connection. - You're right.
If she can't talk to you on a video,
or if she's afraid of the government,
then, like, whatever she's up to is shady, and like,
how is she going to meet you and be your girlfriend?
- Not happening.
- Even if it's a bluff right now.
Say, "Okay, well, if you can't talk to me now,
"then I think we should stop talking.
Good luck. You know, take care."
Are you prepared to do that?
- Yes. 100% prepared to do that at this point.
- All right. "Okay, well, if you don't
"think video chatting is possible,
"then I don't see how
meeting up IRL could happen either."
- That's honestly how I would have laid down the law
to be straight-up with you.
Send it. Boom.
All right, girl. Make up your mind, all right?
Are we gonna--are we gonna talk or are we gonna walk?
- Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. - Oh, okay. Whoa.
"You're a really nice guy, Jay.
"You really are, but in that case,
"I don't think we'll ever really end up meeting up.
I'm so sorry."
That's crazy. She called your bluff.
- All right. - So what do you want to do?
I don't know. I mean, is that it?
Just goodbye?
- This can't just be it. She can't just be like,
"Okay, well, then, it is what it is."
This is not the end.
I feel like we have to hit her back and be like,
"Is that because you've been lying to me this entire time?"
- Yes. I fully agree.
- Ah! I'm sending it. - Oh, man.
Oh, she read it.
Oh, jeez.
- Oh, a quick response. - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
- Quick response.
Oh. - Whoo.
- Wow. "If you really know"? - It's "really want to know."
- She means, "If you really want to know."
- Right, right. Hold on. Let's send the Zoom.
- I'm just freaked out because we don't know
who this person is.
Like, we literally don't know who this is.
- No idea.
- Oh, she's seen it. She's seen it.
She's seen it. All right. Get ready. She's coming.
- Oh, my gosh.
[tense music]
- [gasps] - What the [bleep]?
- Oh, my gosh.
[tense music]
- Oh! - [gasps]
- [inhales deeply] Hi, Jay.
- Are you the person we've been talking to
and the person Jay's been talking to?
- You can call me Mars.
- The actor from the vampire movie?
- Yes.
I'd say you caught me red-handed.
- Hmm. Really? - Finally.
Once and for all.
I never really intended
for things to go this far.
I didn't know how to cut my ties loose without, you know,
ever actually having to hurt you
or just leave you hanging.
I felt bad. I didn't know what I was doing.
- I just want to ask you,
did you do this to try to pursue a relationship?
- Nope.
- Do you have romantic feelings at all for Jay?
- No, ma'am.
I am completely straight,
but I will say that the feelings I have for him
were starting to think about
a beautiful sparing friendship.
I'm not proud of what I've done,
and how long I've been doing it,
but I'm just glad, you know,
I'm finally getting to come clean.
- I mean, I literally led off the conversation
by telling you that one of my best friend's mothers
died of cancer and had her Facebook stolen.
- Right.
- So how do you--how do you even justify going forward?
- I can't really say that...
I can make any sort of excuse for my actions.
But what I can tell you is
I did it with the best of intentions.
- How is that--how is that good intentions at all?
- Let's let him explain. - Okay, go for it.
- Just give us a little bit of the history of Anna.
- Yes. Of course. You know, if anything,
I think that's the least that I'd owe you guys.
So I started this account way back
when I was still in college.
And this was primarily used as for a stalking account.
♪ ♪
- You know, to stalk girls. Both girls and guys.
And, uh, when I started it,
as a guy, I was pretending to be someone named Massimo.
And I'm guessing that you guys could figure out
the person who I was stalking
based on the profile in the account.
- Wait, you mean Lyka? - Yes.
- You were observing the girl, Lyka,
who lives in the Philippines, right?
- Yes.
- And are you from the Philippines?
- Yes, I am as well.
- And do you still live in the Philippines?
- No, I'm talking to you way back here
in the city of Las Vegas, United States of America.
- And so do you know her personally?
Or did you know her?
She was a co-dancer of a dancer that I was, you know,
trying to date.
- Okay, so you had a crush on this girl, Lyka.
And so you made a page to friend her
and perhaps kind of get to know her a little better.
- Yeah. - Is there a reason that
you couldn't do that as yourself?
- Yes, just with me being a totally awkward and odd guy.
[chuckles] - Okay.
- I would've never had the guts to ask her out back then.
And all the girls that, you know, were dancing
were just pretty much way too out of my league.
- So you made this fake profile, you talked to Lyka--
- No, I've never spoken to her.
- Oh, you just followed her as this guy,
but you never talked? - Yes.
That's the part of also being totally odd.
I never had the guts to talk to her on and off-line.
See, in real life, I never thought of doing it,
so why do it online? - Right.
So then, my big question is how and why did you find Jay?
- So it started, you know,
way back when I was personally,
you know, the victim of being catfished.
And, uh, it was very traumatizing.
And I was personally crucified,
you know, by being blackmailed and extorted, you know,
by a female who, you know, catfished me off guard.
She took some snaps.
I was unfortunately in bed, pretty much half-naked, so--
- So what did she want for the photos?
Because you said that she extorted you.
- Yeah, she was blackmailing me for 100 bucks.
♪ ♪
- I know as cheap as it may sound,
I don't give into those kind of demands.
Not even for a dollar.
♪ ♪
[keys clacking]
Since then...
♪ ♪
I mean, I don't know.
It's kind of, like, been a really sensitive subject to me.
- Oh, crazy. - When I first--Yeah.
- That's--that's [bleep]. I'm sorry.
If you--if you took any of that to heart,
you would not be doing any damn thing
you are doing right now, brother.
Like, [bleep].
- Sorry. I just still can't get an answer from you
on how did you find Jay and why did you talk to him?
♪ ♪
- When I was going about catfishing, I said, you know,
I wanted to let people, you know,
take a taste of their own medicine.
So when I started catfishing, I was catfishing as a guy.
And then all of a sudden, you know, one time, I just--
I see this guy on the side of the friend suggestion list.
- The friend suggestion was Jay?
- Yes. - Okay.
- I was maybe thinking if I could pull off one last stunt.
Maybe do it this time as a girl.
- So you just made the Anna profile two months ago
to catfish Jay? - Yes.
- And was that in any way connected to a feeling
or an emotion that's like,
"Hmm. I think I'd like to talk to Jay as a girl"?
- No, but I would say,
throughout, you know, the conversation,
there was always thoughts going about in my head,
like, "You know, this is actually a really nice guy."
And to that point, I thought, "Wow, this guy doesn't deserve
anything that I was doing to him at all."
Because to tell you the truth,
there was, you know, this big agenda
that I was trying to do with this,
you know, from the very start.
And all I wanted from him
was to do the reel that I was asking.
♪ ♪
I just wanted to think that
as long as I've already, you know, gotten what I want,
I'll stop right then and there.
- So pay somebody online to make a reel.
There's plenty of video editing people out there in the world.
- Yo, dude, that's 25 bucks.
♪ ♪
- Can we just slide you
into the, like, waiting room for a minute?
I just want to check in with Jay
and then we'll bring you back in.
- Absolutely. - All right.
So we'll see you in a minute, okay? Don't go anywhere.
- There we go. - What the hell is going on?
Is he--is he beaming in from another planet?
Is that what's happening? - [groans]
- He's a weird dude.
- I mean, to do all this just for a video edit reel? Mm.
- Such a crock of [bleep].
If I was trying to get a free reel from you,
after the third time,
I would've been like, "Okay, [bleep] this guy."
- That's what doesn't make sense, is the time invested.
- Yeah. - Also, he said that
he had made the Facebook for Anna two months ago
to talk to you.
But that has photos dating back from 2017.
- Oh, yeah. - So how is that possible?
- Oh, that's not possible. That's not possible.
- He's clearly not ready to be totally honest with us
about the situation.
So look, why don't we go back now,
and say, "Listen, man.
Why don't you just tell us the truth?"
- Okay, yeah.
- Are you guys ready? Let's do this.
- Poker face. - All right.
[computer dings] Hey, man.
- Hi, again, guys.
- Here's kind of where we're at.
Obviously, there's certainly more to the story.
Like with Anna's Facebook page,
that you said you just made.
We know you didn't just make that,
because the pictures on there are from, like, 2017.
We're going to give you one more chance
to come clean and be honest.
So do you want to do that or do you want to end up
looking like kind of a liar who won't just say the truth?
[tense music]
- Here's kind of where we're at.
Obviously, there's certainly more to the story.
Like with Anna's Facebook page,
that you say you made two months ago.
We know you didn't just make that,
because the pictures on there are from, like, 2017.
So we're going to give you one more chance
to come clean and be honest.
So do you want to do that or do you want to end up
looking like kind of a liar who won't just say the truth?
- No, I totally understand, sir.
- So you say this was all to get a video reel done, correct?
- Yeah. - But wait a second.
Did you know Jay was an editor
before you started talking to him?
- No.
- All right, so then why did you start talking to him?
Just on the off-chance that maybe this guy
could edit your reel? Just...
- Why did you pick me?
- Just so I want you to remember,
you did approach me in the first place.
- No and no. - You did.
- Uh-uh. You said hello. - I would say I added you.
But then, you know-- - You said hi to me first.
- Wait, let me check. Let me--
I'm gonna check. I'm gonna check.
All right, I'm gonna share this screen
so we can all see it.
- Boom. Hi. This makes a big difference.
It shows intent. - Okay.
- You also, I mean, as you can see,
you also kind of, you know, you came in pretty cute
with your little kissy face.
[tense music]
If I'm watching this show right now,
and I see you,
and I see that you've had a profile for a girl
that you use to talk to guys
and that you added Jay as a friend
and started talking with him in what I, again,
would interpret as a flirtatious way,
my instinct is to think,
"Oh, I guess Mars wanted to flirt with a guy."
And what's--no big deal. Okay. Fine.
I know that while I'm fully straight
when it comes to being physically attracted
to only women, I like to flirt.
And sometimes if a guy wants to flirt with me,
I--I'll flirt with a guy. It's fun to flirt.
I'm okay to admit that.
- Yeah, maybe you're just looking
for a little extra attention right now.
- That's honestly, you know,
how we ended up having the conversation for so long,
even though, you know, some points in my head
were telling me to stop.
I was just, you know, glad,
you know, every time that he would say that
he'd miss talking to me.
- Fair enough. Uh...
- You could just say one good thing about me.
[chuckles]
Or just Lyka.
- Honestly, I wasn't talking to Lyka.
I was talking to you.
And as much as I really
understand how you can compartmentalize it,
I gave you an out right away.
And I feel like you never took that out,
all the way up until here.
- [sniffles]
- And so, for me, I have no problem saying
absolutely nothing positive towards the situation.
Other than I hope that you learn
that you've not just affected me,
but you'll affect Lyka.
And I hope that you would take down that profile.
- Yeah. - And delete everything.
- I get you.
- I forgive you.
But do I need to give you any sort of leeway past that? No.
And you're just gonna be out of my life,
and that is what it is, gone.
- I hoped that we had some sort of...
[sniffles] Friendship after this.
[somber music]
But...
I understand.
♪ ♪
- Did it ever occur to you to just add him as a friend
from your personal profile?
♪ ♪
- No.
- Because, you know, I probably would have done your reel.
You know, like, I'm not-- I'm a nice dude.
And at the end of the day,
honesty gets you a lot further than lying.
- I definitely agree.
- We all make mistakes. We do things we regret.
It feels to me like this cycle you've been in
since college, when you weren't confident,
I hope you don't feel that way anymore,
because I have a feeling that you have
a lot of good aspects to your personality.
You're well spoken. You're very respectful.
You're a good-looking guy.
So I hope can find some self-worth and some confidence.
- Be yourself, whatever that may be.
You give people the truth
and let them deal with that with what they will.
So good luck. - Thank you so much, ma'am.
- This was very interesting.
Confusing.
Odd. - I know.
I didn't really want to make it so intriguing.
- Intriguing is definitely the word that I would use.
And I wish you the best.
- Thank you so much.
- All right. See you later, Mars.
- Bye.
- ♪ Yeah and I've been moving up ♪
- He went for the virtual handshake.
Did you see that?
- And I went to the virtual nod.
- Am I in the Twilight Zone?
I don't know who he is.
I don't know who that man is. - Neither do I.
- You were great, Jay. You nailed it.
- We done it.
- You were right to be careful.
And I wish more people would be cautious and skeptical
from the jump, like you.
- Yeah, no, it's all right. It's the name of the game.
So you know. - Yeah.
- Eventually they'll come around and I'll find, uh--
I'll find the right person for me, so...
- A little honey?
- Yeah.
- [laughs]
- Good night, guys. - All right.
See you later, man.
-Bye. -Bye.
♪ ♪
♪ Ah, oh ♪
♪ Guess it's growing up ♪
♪ Oh, oh ♪
♪ I've been growing ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ I've been growing ♪
- Tiara has been dating Gabby in real life.
But meanwhile,
Gabby has been catfishing Tiara's cousin, Jeannette.
- What? - Sorry, Jeannette.
But I do want to get back with her.
- This thread is filled with stories about Gabby catfishing
different people from New York.
- Gabby is the catfish queen.
- What the hell's going on?
She's from the Philippines, but lives in Vegas,
so she says. - She's witty, funny.
I think she's a hard worker. - But seems like
she's definitely currently living in the Philippines.
- If this girl is on the other side of the globe,
we may never find her.
- Let's shoot her a message.
- Oh, she's seen it. She's seen it.
She's seen it. All right. Get ready.
[computer dings] [gasps]
- What? - That's crazy.
[dramatic musical sting]
[upbeat music]
- Mmm, mmm, mmm.
I love breakfast.
This is a mukbang.
Isn't that what it's called? Mukbang or mukbong?
Mukbang?
[notification swoops]
[computer dings] Hello.
You can't hear me? [no audible dialogue]
[gasps] [no audible dialogue]
Yes, you can.
- Yeah, unfortunately, I can.
- I knew it. - [chuckles]
- How was your decompressing time in the Hamptons?
- Cleo's really getting under my skin lately.
- Why? - We are like oil and water.
- My girl. Wait till she turns 13.
- Oh, God. - Ooh.
Y'all about to be in the ring. - Yeah.
- Puberty is a weird thing. I don't know.
- Well, let's do another weird thing, then.
Let's dive on into another "Catfish" case.
We got something here from Jay.
Subject is "This has to be too good to be true."
"Hi, Nev and Kamie.
"My name is Jay, and I live just outside Portland, Oregon.
"Two months ago,
"a woman named Anna friended me on Facebook
and then messaged me."
- ♪ I don't need no explanation ♪
- "I was a little suspicious of her.
"She was cute, Filipino, and I had no connection to her.
"Anna turned out to be great."
- ♪ We've got that motivation ♪
♪ I don't need no explanation ♪
- "And I wouldn't be opposed
"to pursuing a relationship with her.
"The thing is..."
"I can't quite get a full read on her.
"After a month, she gave me her phone number.
"But when I called it,
"it went to some guy's voicemail.
♪ ♪
"She told me she accidentally gave me her boss's number."
- Okay. - "It seemed off.
"But she ended up giving me a different number.
"I texted it, but I never got a response back from her."
- ♪ I've been droppin' bombs all day long ♪
- "Even though we use Messenger,
"we haven't done a video call.
"But to be honest,
"I don't base my attraction to a woman on her looks.
"This might sound like a line of BS,
but I'm an incomplete quadriplegic."
- Wow.
- "So the physical isn't something
"I let define my life.
"Being a quadriplegic means
"that I have my guard up a little higher.
"It isn't easy to gain my trust,
"or to get me to open up.
"Even though Anna isn't the most forthcoming of people,
"I'd like to see if there's a future for Anna and I.
"Will you help me figure out if Anna is for real?
Thanks, Jay."
Wild. He's a incomplete quadriplegic,
which means most of his body does not work,
but maybe he has some movement abilities.
- Wow. If Anna is here to, like, break his heart,
I'm gonna have to...
For legal reasons, that was a joke.
- It just feels super messed up if that's what's happening.
- Let's talk to Jay... - Yeah.
- And see what he has to say.
"Hey, Jay. It's Nev and Kamie.
Come to our Zoom."
♪ ♪
[computer dings]
- Hey. - Hey.
- What's up? - What's up? How are you guys?
Oh, I'm so honored to have you guys,
professionals come and help me out
and figure out this situation.
- Before we get into all that, uh,
tell us a little about yourself; what do you do?
- Well, I've been editing skydiving videos.
- Whoa. - Lots of fun.
I get to see people jump out of planes
and see them scream.
- Oh, my God. Have you done it?
- Yeah. - Wait, you skydive?
- Oh, yeah. - That's amazing.
- I use, like, a couple adaptive devices.
One of them, like, wraps around my knees.
That helps me pull my knees up,
'cause I don't have movement
from anything from my collarbone down.
Because I had a spinal cord injury.
- How did you get your injury?
- I broke my C5-C6 vertebrae
diving into a lake when I was 17 years old.
At the time, I was training to become,
like, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.
I was saved, pulled out, and resuscitated
by a couple of people,
I actually don't know who they were.
I actually thought it was kind of ironic I did it that way,
because I was such a daredevil beforehand.
So I was like, "Oh, wow."
Just the way it goes sometimes. - Yeah.
But the fact that your able to sit here and, like,
be so positive about it and, like, lighthearted about it.
How was that transformation?
- I just had mentally decided to just, like, let go of stuff.
Like, it's not--
you know, not hold onto things that I really can't control.
Now it's trying to invent a way
to live a life that hasn't completely been lived before.
I get to pioneer a lot of random stuff.
So it's quite an opportunity to do things
that most people don't get to do.
- Amen.
- That's amazing. - Very cool.
So, yeah, so look. We just read your email.
We would just love to hear the whole story in your words.
- Anna hit me up about two months ago.
I have no idea how she found me.
And she's like, "Oh, I'm just looking to make friends."
I was suspicious, so I question her a little bit.
'Cause I'm not cool with people
stealing people's profiles.
I've had my friend's mom's identity stolen
when she passed away from cancer.
And she was used on Facebook in various situations.
So, like, I just wanted to make sure
that she wasn't doing that.
She said she wasn't,
and she just kind of made a joke out of it,
and I thought it was actually pretty funny.
So we just started talking.
♪ ♪
- So tell us about Anna. What's her deal?
She's a 22-year-old Filipino.
She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- She's super-hot.
- Well...
- [laughs] - She's hella cute.
But that's not my full-on interest.
She makes me laugh. She's intelligent.
There is something about her.
She's witty, funny. I think she's a hard worker.
And also, we have, like, a love of dancing together.
I found that she was, you know, creative.
Just normal. And I think normal is pretty freakin' awesome.
♪ ♪
- She lives in Vegas now,
but she grew up in the Philippines?
- Yes. - What does she do?
- She says she's a data analyst.
Something to deal with, like, managing data.
- Would you say that you talk pretty much every day?
- Every day, every other day for sure.
- But you guys have never talked on the phone?
- No. A month in, I had asked for her phone number, right?
And I ended up calling it, and it ended up being--
It went to some dude's voicemail.
[line beeping]
And so I was like, "Hey,
why did you give me the wrong phone number?"
And she was like, "Oh, I had my boss's phone number
"copy and pasted.
I didn't mean to do that."
And then gave me a second phone number.
I tried texted it.
And then no reply.
- That's so weird. - Yeah, it was super weird.
That's when I was like, "Hmm...
What's going on here?"
- Shady.
So we know she has a Facebook page, but what about--
I mean, hard to find a cute 22-year-old
who lives in Las Vegas that doesn't also have
an Instagram and a Snapchat and a TikTok
and a Twitter. - Right.
- Like, what about all that stuff?
- Well, I don't--I don't do TikTok.
I don't do Snapchat.
I hardly do Instagram.
- Hmm. So let me ask you,
have you guys sent photos back and forth?
Or videos at all or? - Yeah.
- Anything...
- Anything bad? No way.
- Just because you can't move from the collarbone down,
doesn't mean you can't nude from the collarbone down.
- Oh, hell yeah, I can--
I can do whatever I want.
But I move at the pace of my partner.
I--I feel like consent is the most important thing.
And I don't feel like pushing that issue because
- We stand a consent king.
- All right, so I want to see some of these
conversations that you guys have been having.
So can you plug in and share your screen
so we can scroll through?
- Is it working? Boom.
- Boom. Okay, whoa.
Wait a second. - Wait.
- She goes by Anna, but--
- Yeah, but it's Lyka, you know, just a username.
- All right, so I guess this is where it starts.
Yeah, July 23rd.
"I've had my friend's identity stolen."
Wow, so you really weren't kidding.
You got right into it. "After she died of cancer,
"so I always check. Especially when it's a cute girl.
Ooh. You started flirting right away.
- Ooh. - No, no, no. No, no, no.
No, that wasn't me flirting right away.
That was me saying, like, "No,
especially when it's a cute girl."
- Mm, okay, Jay.
- I'm getting ganged up on here, right?
- [laughs] - We have--we have two people
that are professionals at making people blush.
Anyways... - Well, anyway, I mean,
you were already kind of cautious and on the lookout...
- Mm-hmm. - And aware of the reality
that there are people out there
making fake profiles. - Yes.
- But there hasn't been any attempt to meet up, right?
- No, no, no.
Definitely COVID's been a thing, and also life.
- So all right. Let's see what we can figure out.
Send us what you have, and obviously, any photos.
- I'll send everything. Everything I find.
- Great. - Thank you. Peace out.
- Aw, Jay.
What do you think?
- My heart wants this to just be a nice friendship
between these two people that might be able to blossom
into something more,
but Jay's already raised the red flag,
and said there are some things about this girl
that feel a little off. - My vote is
Anna is lying about something.
And we need to figure out what.
- Okay, let's start this investigation.
Give us the recap, Kamie. - We got Jay.
Jay just so happens to be someone with quadriplegia.
He's been talking to Anna.
She's from the Philippines,
but lives in Vegas, so she says.
They haven't been able to get on the phone.
So they've been only communicating
on Facebook Messenger this whole entire time.
- Looks like he did send us an email. Okay, perfect.
All of Anna's info.
"Don't know if you want to read
"the rest of conversation with Anna,
but if you do, you can log into my Facebook."
Okay, Anna's Facebook page.
"And the first number I have she gave me,
"said it was her boss's number.
"The second number she gave me.
"I've attached the picture she sent me.
Thanks again for your help."
What do you want to do?
- Should we go back and look at
the fullness of their convos first?
- Okay, so we're in. All right, so--
- Oh, there's a lot of photos in there. Aw.
- They talk a lot. - Yeah.
"What is your job?"
- "I'm a data encoder for a family-owned company."
- Oh, and she listed the company.
"It's in my bio, called Empire Carbonell."
- Hmm. "Hey, Jay, just wondering
"if you want to edit some videos for me.
How much would you charge?"
- She said, "It's a reel for my boss's son.
I'm looking for someone to make him a demo reel."
Okay, so apparently, he's a vampire in this movie
that she sent him a trailer to.
- Doesn't this--I don't know.
I mean, is she trying to get him to edit videos
or have a relationship?
- It does feel weird.
So they're talking about meeting.
She says she's nervous. Says, "I actually want love."
- She said, "You're the first one who's actually
"still likes me for being me,
and that you don't just go after my looks."
- Oh, ooh. And then Jay says,
"Missed you today, hope you're well.
Send me a selfie. I miss your beautiful face."
- Aw. Jay really likes her.
- We're reading through these messages,
it all feels very nice, relatively innocent.
I think she was hoping he could edit the video for her.
But nothing weird there.
- Yeah, I don't--I don't know.
- So let's do an image search
at least just with the pictures that he sent us.
Here we go.
First picture, just a nice picture of her smiling.
Hmm. No hits.
All right, I'm going to try this one.
This is more of a glamour shot.
- Hmm. - No.
Here's another one.
Hmm. No hits. Man, nothing.
Damn. All right. So no hits on the pictures he sent us.
Let's do a little reverse phone search
for the number she says is actually her number.
[tense music]
"No name associated."
It does say it's a landline, though.
Which often means that it's a text app.
What else do we have?
Let's go to Anna's Facebook page.
Check it out.
- "Lyka."
- But Jay said she goes by Anna.
- Right.
- Okay, so it says where she works.
That name. Empire Carbonell.
Wait, this says it's a clothing brand.
Oh, well, I guess it could be,
and she does, like, data analysis for them.
- Hmm. - "Dancer at M Force."
Okay, yeah. Jay said she was into dancing.
- That must be her school in the Philippines.
- Well, let's look at these pictures.
♪ ♪
Now, these are old. This is from 2017.
♪ ♪
2017.
All of her posts are written-- - In Tagalog.
- So all of these posts are translated.
- Yeah, translated for Facebook into English.
- But okay. Let's do an Instagram search for her.
Lyka Dalangin.
Oh, wait a second. Here's a--here's an account.
- "Dance my heart out." - Lyka [bleep].
Different last name. - Same photo.
Search that.
- Just Google it? - Yeah.
♪ ♪
Lyka [bleep]. - Facebook.
- Oh, wait a second. Lyka [bleep].
Ooh, "dancer at M Force."
Wait, this is her.
- Ooh.
- Wait a second. Wait a second.
♪ ♪
"Studied at Philippines State. Dancer at M Force."
So that checks out.
From the Philippines. She says she's single.
I'm looking-- - Same photos.
- It's obviously the same person.
- Right. - Which is good
'cause it all kind of looks the same,
except here her name is different.
Different last name.
And also, the profile that Jay talks to goes by Anna.
- I don't know. I'm confused as to
which one could be legitimate and which one isn't.
- Unless they're both her.
I mean, he could be talking to this real girl
and just not know that she has a second page.
So hold on a second. Let's just look up this girl.
And just see.
M Force.
- That's the dance place that she said that she works at.
That matches up. Maybe this is the same girl.
- Yeah, let's go to this page.
♪ ♪
Wait, that's her for sure. - That's her on the right.
Yeah. - Yeah.
I mean, this, I think, is for sure
photos taken in the Philippines.
This was only December of last year, so, like,
I'm not sure when she's supposed to have moved here.
This person exists, and their name seems to be Lyka [bleep].
It's just interesting to me that
this page seems very active,
but this is not the page she messaged him from.
Let's see. Sometimes it helps to get up.
Maybe move around a little bit.
Lyka and Anna. Lyka and Anna.
In it together. How? Why?
- [chuckles]
There's definitely something fishy happening here.
I'm just not sure what it is.
All right, well, obviously there's a chance that
Anna is the girl she says she is.
And maybe her real name is Lyka [bleep],
but she calls herself Anna as, like, a safe name
to meet new people.
She's been honest with him.
That still feels like it's possible.
- Or maybe she's pretending that she lives in Vegas,
but maybe she still lives in the Philippines.
- Oh, interesting.
- Because most of her posts from just a year ago
are saying that she's in the Philippines.
- Right. So there's a chance
that everything she's saying is true.
There's a chance that most of what she's saying is true,
but maybe she doesn't live in Las Vegas.
There's a lot of question marks.
- I don't know how we're gonna get a concrete answer,
or who we're gonna get the answers from.
And if this girl is, like, on the other side of the globe,
we may never find her.
[upbeat music]
- Good morning.
Oh, wow.
He's in a Zen place.
Om. - Notice any changes?
- Very green.
- This morning, I went and got a bunch of new plants.
- Do you have names for any of them?
- Haven't named them yet.
- 'Cause you have to name the plants.
This is Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
- [chuckles]
- Well, I'm very into your new vibes.
- Yeah, I feel really good about it.
Anyway, let's get back into the story,
because we found so much weird stuff yesterday.
Well, that weird conversation about hiring him
to edit the video. I mean, it's just, you know.
There's this other Facebook page.
There's definitely a real chance that this girl
is who she says she is,
but she's not in the United States.
- Right. Which I don't know
if Jay would have a problem with that.
- Well, let's go find out. Let's bring Jay back in.
Yo, yo.
"We read for you in Zoom."
[notification wooshes] [computer dings]
- All right. - Hey.
- We're in. - How do you feel?
- I'm excited to just see who Anna is.
It's a nerve-racking little event,
but I'm excited to figure it out.
- All right, well, so we found some stuff.
- All right. Here we go.
- Some of it makes sense. Some of it doesn't make sense.
We just kind of all need to figure it out together.
- Okay. - All right.
So we went to her Facebook page
and just kind of looked through this a little bit.
Since she had wanted to hire you to work for her job,
we were like, okay, let's check out her job.
Empire Carbonell.
And when we go to it, it says it's a clothing brand.
We were confused 'cause she said she was in, like,
data analysis. - Exactly.
Yeah, no. I did notice that inconsistency too.
But then again, at the same time,
like, I'm not sure if everybody's updating
where they're working all the time. You know what I mean?
So, okay, so let's keep going.
Because the next thing we did was
we did a search for Lyka Dalangin on Instagram
and found this.
Obviously, it's the same girl.
But here, she calls herself Lyka [bleep].
Different last name. - Mm.
Has she ever mentioned or used the name [bleep]
for any reason? - No. Not at all.
- So now there's this new last name.
Then we did a search for Lyka [bleep],
and we got this Facebook page
which came up for a girl named Lyka [bleep].
[tense music]
- Definitely the same person. - Well, right. So this is weird
because there's this whole other profile
with the same girl.
The good news is that her story seems to be the same
as who you've been talking to.
She is obviously a dancer, she is from the Philippines.
So it could just be her.
But the problem is that whoever this girl is,
she's definitely living in the Philippines.
But most of the stuff Anna has told you
matches up with Lyka.
So you could be talking to the real girl,
she just may not be living in the States.
I don't know when she said she moved to Las Vegas,
but it would have had to have been pretty recently.
Did she say when she moved here?
- That was a question I did not ask, to be honest.
- Another gap we were trying to fill in is
can you tell us more about this situation
with the video editing?
'Cause it just seemed strange. - Right.
One of the things we noticed when you guys were talking
was that she had said,
"Just to show you one of my friend's movies."
- "Bloodthirst, vampire film."
She said he plays the vampire.
And he wanted, like, some reel stuff edited for himself.
- How did you end up leaving it with that whole job?
- I just told her I was way too busy.
Just, like, you know, like, I just literally couldn't do it.
- Oh, okay. - So.
- You want to just search the movie?
- Mm-hmm.
- So when I do a search on IMDB for "Blood[bleep],"
look, here's one that's got to be it.
- Is there a way to see who played the vampires?
Oh. "Vampire queen's follower number three.
"Vampire number ten."
- Wait. Let's see full cast.
- "Follower." - Oh, oh, oh!
Mars Carbonell. - Yeah. Yeah, there we go.
- Oh, [bleep]. "Vampire 11."
Mars Carbonell. Carbonell.
That's the same name as the company she worked for.
- Well, maybe it's his boss's son,
'cause didn't she say-- - Yeah, she did. She did.
It was her boss's son.
- Unbelievable. Wait a second.
This is a real guy. I mean, look, he's got a little--
What is it with this guy?
- Is he from the Philippines? - I don't know.
Let's see if we can find him.
"Mars Carbonell."
It comes up. Here's an Instagram.
There he is.
- So is this, like, her boss's son?
- I don't know. This weirdly fits into the story.
So this girl's story could be legit.
♪ ♪
There's a guy with the same last name
as her "boss,"
who is an actor, who was in a movie.
- We could easily ask him, do you know a Lyka? Anna?
Somebody? - Yeah. We should.
- I'm being bold. Let's do it. - All right.
"Hey, Mars.
"This is Nev from the MTV show 'Catfish.'
"We are working on a case involving your friend Lyka
"and could use your help.
Please give me a call."
All right. Sent.
- [sighs] This girl's a mystery.
- Yeah, this whole thing's a mystery.
Got my nerves all up in the air,
'cause I have no idea what's going on.
Freakin' Freddy Krueger could pop up
on the other side of this screen
for all I know right now.
- A vampire.
- Whoa, Mars just wrote back. - Oh, man.
"Sorry, can't talk about Lyka.
Don't want to get her in any trouble with visa stuff."
- What? - What?
That's crazy. - Wow.
- What the hell does he mean, "visa stuff"?
- "Sorry, can't talk about Lyka.
Don't want to get her in any trouble with visa stuff."
- What? - What?
- That's crazy. - Wow.
- What the hell does he mean, "visa stuff"?
- Could it be that Anna,
AKA Lyka, is here in the States?
Maybe she came on a student visa,
but it expired, and she's staying,
and she's working and she's not supposed to be,
and so she made this new profile
with a slightly more Americanized name, right?
Anna Dalangin instead of Lyka [bleep] or whatever,
and she's trying to make friends in the States
to marry... - Yeah.
- So that she can get a green card.
- Very possible.
- What's your gut telling you?
- My gut's telling me it's all a ploy.
Only because, like, we don't even know if they're in Vegas.
Like, the real profile
is in the Philippines. - Right.
- Well, then, I guess that makes me wonder
if she does live in the Philippines,
would that be a deal-breaker?
- I don't know. I think she's really cool.
I think the person I've been talking to is really cool.
If they were real, like, yeah,
it would be really cool to talk to them.
But here I am in a wheelchair, fully presenting all of my,
you know, flaws, hardships, and triumphs,
and you know, if someone's gonna hide...
- Yeah. - It's like, come on, man.
I'm putting my baggage out there.
You might as well do the same.
- Okay, so what do we do?
- Well, I don't think Mars
is going to tell us anything else.
Normally, there might be a few options,
but I feel like in this case, we only have one,
which is send a message to her Facebook page.
- Well, let's do it. Let's shoot her a message.
Let's invite her to the Zoom.
- I think we're still logged in to yours.
What should we say to her?
- Should we just tell her straight up?
Like, "I'm here with Nev and Kamie from 'Catfish.'"
"Hey, Anna.
"I know we've talked a lot about meeting up in the past.
"I enlisted the help of the hosts of an MTV show
"all about bringing Internet friends together.
"I'm on a Zoom right now with the hosts, Nev and Kamie,
and would love if you could join us."
- Perfect. - Send.
The check just means that it's sent,
but not seen, right? - Yes.
When the name pops down, that's when it's seen.
- The little picture next to it.
- Oh, it dropped, it dropped, it dropped, it dropped.
Boom. - [gasps] It did?
[gasps]It did.
Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
- Look, she's active. "Active on Messenger."
- Oh, [bleep].
- All right, she's reading it. She's reading it.
Oh, oh, oh! Bubbles.
[chuckles] - It's the triple bubbles.
[groans]
- Whoa. Okay. "Jay, you know I like you.
"I really do, but I don't think I'm ready for this.
Don't know if I can be on TV."
- Hmm.
- All right, I mean, that's fair.
I'm--I don't blame people for being nervous
or--or potentially not super into the idea of going on TV.
- You can say, "I know it's weird,
and unconventional." - Right. "I know it's
"a bit strange to meet like this,
"but I'm not sure if I'm comfortable
continuing our relationship..."
- "Till I see you."
I mean, if she really likes you,
she's not gonna want to stop talking to you...
- Yeah. - If this could mean
you guys will not be speaking after this.
- Yep.
- Oh, oh, we got bubbles.
We got bubbles. - Oh, my gosh.
We got bubbles. We got bubbles.
- [laughing]
- [gasps] Ooh.
Okay, "I know that I want to see you,
"but it's so hard for me to do this,
because I don't want to get in trouble with the government."
- Oh, my gosh. The plot thickens.
- What?
- What if she's here illegally
and she doesn't want to be outed for being here illegally.
- If she comes on a show
and shows that she's an illegal immigrant,
it may not be kosher with the rule of law.
- If you think you're gonna get in trouble
just video chatting, then there's no way
for us to even have
a in-person, like, connection. - You're right.
If she can't talk to you on a video,
or if she's afraid of the government,
then, like, whatever she's up to is shady, and like,
how is she going to meet you and be your girlfriend?
- Not happening.
- Even if it's a bluff right now.
Say, "Okay, well, if you can't talk to me now,
"then I think we should stop talking.
Good luck. You know, take care."
Are you prepared to do that?
- Yes. 100% prepared to do that at this point.
- All right. "Okay, well, if you don't
"think video chatting is possible,
"then I don't see how
meeting up IRL could happen either."
- That's honestly how I would have laid down the law
to be straight-up with you.
Send it. Boom.
All right, girl. Make up your mind, all right?
Are we gonna--are we gonna talk or are we gonna walk?
- Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. - Oh, okay. Whoa.
"You're a really nice guy, Jay.
"You really are, but in that case,
"I don't think we'll ever really end up meeting up.
I'm so sorry."
That's crazy. She called your bluff.
- All right. - So what do you want to do?
I don't know. I mean, is that it?
Just goodbye?
- This can't just be it. She can't just be like,
"Okay, well, then, it is what it is."
This is not the end.
I feel like we have to hit her back and be like,
"Is that because you've been lying to me this entire time?"
- Yes. I fully agree.
- Ah! I'm sending it. - Oh, man.
Oh, she read it.
Oh, jeez.
- Oh, a quick response. - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
- Quick response.
Oh. - Whoo.
- Wow. "If you really know"? - It's "really want to know."
- She means, "If you really want to know."
- Right, right. Hold on. Let's send the Zoom.
- I'm just freaked out because we don't know
who this person is.
Like, we literally don't know who this is.
- No idea.
- Oh, she's seen it. She's seen it.
She's seen it. All right. Get ready. She's coming.
- Oh, my gosh.
[tense music]
- [gasps] - What the [bleep]?
- Oh, my gosh.
[tense music]
- Oh! - [gasps]
- [inhales deeply] Hi, Jay.
- Are you the person we've been talking to
and the person Jay's been talking to?
- You can call me Mars.
- The actor from the vampire movie?
- Yes.
I'd say you caught me red-handed.
- Hmm. Really? - Finally.
Once and for all.
I never really intended
for things to go this far.
I didn't know how to cut my ties loose without, you know,
ever actually having to hurt you
or just leave you hanging.
I felt bad. I didn't know what I was doing.
- I just want to ask you,
did you do this to try to pursue a relationship?
- Nope.
- Do you have romantic feelings at all for Jay?
- No, ma'am.
I am completely straight,
but I will say that the feelings I have for him
were starting to think about
a beautiful sparing friendship.
I'm not proud of what I've done,
and how long I've been doing it,
but I'm just glad, you know,
I'm finally getting to come clean.
- I mean, I literally led off the conversation
by telling you that one of my best friend's mothers
died of cancer and had her Facebook stolen.
- Right.
- So how do you--how do you even justify going forward?
- I can't really say that...
I can make any sort of excuse for my actions.
But what I can tell you is
I did it with the best of intentions.
- How is that--how is that good intentions at all?
- Let's let him explain. - Okay, go for it.
- Just give us a little bit of the history of Anna.
- Yes. Of course. You know, if anything,
I think that's the least that I'd owe you guys.
So I started this account way back
when I was still in college.
And this was primarily used as for a stalking account.
♪ ♪
- You know, to stalk girls. Both girls and guys.
And, uh, when I started it,
as a guy, I was pretending to be someone named Massimo.
And I'm guessing that you guys could figure out
the person who I was stalking
based on the profile in the account.
- Wait, you mean Lyka? - Yes.
- You were observing the girl, Lyka,
who lives in the Philippines, right?
- Yes.
- And are you from the Philippines?
- Yes, I am as well.
- And do you still live in the Philippines?
- No, I'm talking to you way back here
in the city of Las Vegas, United States of America.
- And so do you know her personally?
Or did you know her?
She was a co-dancer of a dancer that I was, you know,
trying to date.
- Okay, so you had a crush on this girl, Lyka.
And so you made a page to friend her
and perhaps kind of get to know her a little better.
- Yeah. - Is there a reason that
you couldn't do that as yourself?
- Yes, just with me being a totally awkward and odd guy.
[chuckles] - Okay.
- I would've never had the guts to ask her out back then.
And all the girls that, you know, were dancing
were just pretty much way too out of my league.
- So you made this fake profile, you talked to Lyka--
- No, I've never spoken to her.
- Oh, you just followed her as this guy,
but you never talked? - Yes.
That's the part of also being totally odd.
I never had the guts to talk to her on and off-line.
See, in real life, I never thought of doing it,
so why do it online? - Right.
So then, my big question is how and why did you find Jay?
- So it started, you know,
way back when I was personally,
you know, the victim of being catfished.
And, uh, it was very traumatizing.
And I was personally crucified,
you know, by being blackmailed and extorted, you know,
by a female who, you know, catfished me off guard.
She took some snaps.
I was unfortunately in bed, pretty much half-naked, so--
- So what did she want for the photos?
Because you said that she extorted you.
- Yeah, she was blackmailing me for 100 bucks.
♪ ♪
- I know as cheap as it may sound,
I don't give into those kind of demands.
Not even for a dollar.
♪ ♪
[keys clacking]
Since then...
♪ ♪
I mean, I don't know.
It's kind of, like, been a really sensitive subject to me.
- Oh, crazy. - When I first--Yeah.
- That's--that's [bleep]. I'm sorry.
If you--if you took any of that to heart,
you would not be doing any damn thing
you are doing right now, brother.
Like, [bleep].
- Sorry. I just still can't get an answer from you
on how did you find Jay and why did you talk to him?
♪ ♪
- When I was going about catfishing, I said, you know,
I wanted to let people, you know,
take a taste of their own medicine.
So when I started catfishing, I was catfishing as a guy.
And then all of a sudden, you know, one time, I just--
I see this guy on the side of the friend suggestion list.
- The friend suggestion was Jay?
- Yes. - Okay.
- I was maybe thinking if I could pull off one last stunt.
Maybe do it this time as a girl.
- So you just made the Anna profile two months ago
to catfish Jay? - Yes.
- And was that in any way connected to a feeling
or an emotion that's like,
"Hmm. I think I'd like to talk to Jay as a girl"?
- No, but I would say,
throughout, you know, the conversation,
there was always thoughts going about in my head,
like, "You know, this is actually a really nice guy."
And to that point, I thought, "Wow, this guy doesn't deserve
anything that I was doing to him at all."
Because to tell you the truth,
there was, you know, this big agenda
that I was trying to do with this,
you know, from the very start.
And all I wanted from him
was to do the reel that I was asking.
♪ ♪
I just wanted to think that
as long as I've already, you know, gotten what I want,
I'll stop right then and there.
- So pay somebody online to make a reel.
There's plenty of video editing people out there in the world.
- Yo, dude, that's 25 bucks.
♪ ♪
- Can we just slide you
into the, like, waiting room for a minute?
I just want to check in with Jay
and then we'll bring you back in.
- Absolutely. - All right.
So we'll see you in a minute, okay? Don't go anywhere.
- There we go. - What the hell is going on?
Is he--is he beaming in from another planet?
Is that what's happening? - [groans]
- He's a weird dude.
- I mean, to do all this just for a video edit reel? Mm.
- Such a crock of [bleep].
If I was trying to get a free reel from you,
after the third time,
I would've been like, "Okay, [bleep] this guy."
- That's what doesn't make sense, is the time invested.
- Yeah. - Also, he said that
he had made the Facebook for Anna two months ago
to talk to you.
But that has photos dating back from 2017.
- Oh, yeah. - So how is that possible?
- Oh, that's not possible. That's not possible.
- He's clearly not ready to be totally honest with us
about the situation.
So look, why don't we go back now,
and say, "Listen, man.
Why don't you just tell us the truth?"
- Okay, yeah.
- Are you guys ready? Let's do this.
- Poker face. - All right.
[computer dings] Hey, man.
- Hi, again, guys.
- Here's kind of where we're at.
Obviously, there's certainly more to the story.
Like with Anna's Facebook page,
that you said you just made.
We know you didn't just make that,
because the pictures on there are from, like, 2017.
We're going to give you one more chance
to come clean and be honest.
So do you want to do that or do you want to end up
looking like kind of a liar who won't just say the truth?
[tense music]
- Here's kind of where we're at.
Obviously, there's certainly more to the story.
Like with Anna's Facebook page,
that you say you made two months ago.
We know you didn't just make that,
because the pictures on there are from, like, 2017.
So we're going to give you one more chance
to come clean and be honest.
So do you want to do that or do you want to end up
looking like kind of a liar who won't just say the truth?
- No, I totally understand, sir.
- So you say this was all to get a video reel done, correct?
- Yeah. - But wait a second.
Did you know Jay was an editor
before you started talking to him?
- No.
- All right, so then why did you start talking to him?
Just on the off-chance that maybe this guy
could edit your reel? Just...
- Why did you pick me?
- Just so I want you to remember,
you did approach me in the first place.
- No and no. - You did.
- Uh-uh. You said hello. - I would say I added you.
But then, you know-- - You said hi to me first.
- Wait, let me check. Let me--
I'm gonna check. I'm gonna check.
All right, I'm gonna share this screen
so we can all see it.
- Boom. Hi. This makes a big difference.
It shows intent. - Okay.
- You also, I mean, as you can see,
you also kind of, you know, you came in pretty cute
with your little kissy face.
[tense music]
If I'm watching this show right now,
and I see you,
and I see that you've had a profile for a girl
that you use to talk to guys
and that you added Jay as a friend
and started talking with him in what I, again,
would interpret as a flirtatious way,
my instinct is to think,
"Oh, I guess Mars wanted to flirt with a guy."
And what's--no big deal. Okay. Fine.
I know that while I'm fully straight
when it comes to being physically attracted
to only women, I like to flirt.
And sometimes if a guy wants to flirt with me,
I--I'll flirt with a guy. It's fun to flirt.
I'm okay to admit that.
- Yeah, maybe you're just looking
for a little extra attention right now.
- That's honestly, you know,
how we ended up having the conversation for so long,
even though, you know, some points in my head
were telling me to stop.
I was just, you know, glad,
you know, every time that he would say that
he'd miss talking to me.
- Fair enough. Uh...
- You could just say one good thing about me.
[chuckles]
Or just Lyka.
- Honestly, I wasn't talking to Lyka.
I was talking to you.
And as much as I really
understand how you can compartmentalize it,
I gave you an out right away.
And I feel like you never took that out,
all the way up until here.
- [sniffles]
- And so, for me, I have no problem saying
absolutely nothing positive towards the situation.
Other than I hope that you learn
that you've not just affected me,
but you'll affect Lyka.
And I hope that you would take down that profile.
- Yeah. - And delete everything.
- I get you.
- I forgive you.
But do I need to give you any sort of leeway past that? No.
And you're just gonna be out of my life,
and that is what it is, gone.
- I hoped that we had some sort of...
[sniffles] Friendship after this.
[somber music]
But...
I understand.
♪ ♪
- Did it ever occur to you to just add him as a friend
from your personal profile?
♪ ♪
- No.
- Because, you know, I probably would have done your reel.
You know, like, I'm not-- I'm a nice dude.
And at the end of the day,
honesty gets you a lot further than lying.
- I definitely agree.
- We all make mistakes. We do things we regret.
It feels to me like this cycle you've been in
since college, when you weren't confident,
I hope you don't feel that way anymore,
because I have a feeling that you have
a lot of good aspects to your personality.
You're well spoken. You're very respectful.
You're a good-looking guy.
So I hope can find some self-worth and some confidence.
- Be yourself, whatever that may be.
You give people the truth
and let them deal with that with what they will.
So good luck. - Thank you so much, ma'am.
- This was very interesting.
Confusing.
Odd. - I know.
I didn't really want to make it so intriguing.
- Intriguing is definitely the word that I would use.
And I wish you the best.
- Thank you so much.
- All right. See you later, Mars.
- Bye.
- ♪ Yeah and I've been moving up ♪
- He went for the virtual handshake.
Did you see that?
- And I went to the virtual nod.
- Am I in the Twilight Zone?
I don't know who he is.
I don't know who that man is. - Neither do I.
- You were great, Jay. You nailed it.
- We done it.
- You were right to be careful.
And I wish more people would be cautious and skeptical
from the jump, like you.
- Yeah, no, it's all right. It's the name of the game.
So you know. - Yeah.
- Eventually they'll come around and I'll find, uh--
I'll find the right person for me, so...
- A little honey?
- Yeah.
- [laughs]
- Good night, guys. - All right.
See you later, man.
-Bye. -Bye.
♪ ♪
♪ Ah, oh ♪
♪ Guess it's growing up ♪
♪ Oh, oh ♪
♪ I've been growing ♪
♪ Oh ♪
♪ I've been growing ♪
- Tiara has been dating Gabby in real life.
But meanwhile,
Gabby has been catfishing Tiara's cousin, Jeannette.
- What? - Sorry, Jeannette.
But I do want to get back with her.
- This thread is filled with stories about Gabby catfishing
different people from New York.
- Gabby is the catfish queen.
- What the hell's going on?