Catfish: The TV Show (2012–…): Season 8, Episode 38 - Michael & Dustin - full transcript
Michael has been talking to his beau, Dustin, for three years, then he finds Dustin's secret social media profile and realizes that he is a married man.
- Michael has been talking
to this guy, Dustin, for three years.
He's been stood up by Dustin five times.
- Michael. - If you have been lying,
I am onto you. - He's married.
- What's uglier than infidelity
and a possible divorce?
- We have an address.
That's right in, like, part of downtown.
- Say no more. I'll go check it out.
- Turn right on Hope, which is coming up any moment.
Ooh, that is a warehouse.
What?
- Uh-oh.
[upbeat music]
- Kamie.
Wassup?
- Hello. - Hey.
- I need to get my lip liner. - You don't need it.
- Yes, I do. How are the kids?
- Beau is fully potty trained.
- [gasps]
- We didn't even need to train him.
- Yay! - We just took the diapers away
and then just magically, uses the toilet now.
- He's a grown-ass man.
[laughs] - It's crazy.
- All right. - She's ready.
Let's check out what we got.
Oh, we got an email. The sender is Just Michael.
- Well, that makes it easy.
- And the subject is: Love of my life or a stalker?
- If you have to ask, probably the latter.
- [laughs]
Hello, King Nev and Queen Kamie.
- This is how I want to be addressed.
- Finally. - [laughs]
- My name is Michael. I'm originally from Texas,
but I currently reside in Las Vegas.
Back in 2017, I was contacted by a guy named Dustin,
who randomly messaged me from a number I didn't know.
He claims that we had spoken previously,
but I have no recollection of ever having spoken to him.
Either way, he was super sexy and a zaddy.
We hit it off and we planned a date,
but Dustin went ghost.
- ♪ 'Cause we are modern lovers ♪
♪ Hanging on each other ♪
- Since then I've been stood up by Dustin...
- What? - Five times.
- So why are we even still talking about this?
- I've tried to ghost him, but he keeps popping back up.
I still really like him a lot and I want him to be the one,
but I am worried this guy is a catfish.
He told me he doesn't have social media,
but I did some digging and I found a page.
He might be hiding something.
♪ ♪
I want to finally meet Dustin and date him for real,
but I'm afraid something really weird might be going on.
Dustin could be the love of my life or a total stalker.
Help! - ♪ This is modern love ♪
- Thanks, Texas Prince, Michael.
Wow. They met three years ago.
- But he's ghosted him five times
so that cancels out the three years.
- We gotta talk to Michael.
Hey, Michael, it's King Nev and Queen Kamie.
He wrote back. Hello, king and queen.
Oh, my God, seriously?
- Yaas.
- Come Zoom with us
and spill all the tea.
- [gasps]
- Hello.
- Oh! - Michael.
- Hey.
- I have something special I would love to show you.
- Oh. - Yes.
- Oh, yeah.
- So this is for you both, my king and queen.
- I'm putting it on. - Perfect.
- I'm modeling it over my bun.
- Yes, you're doing great.
- How are things in Las Vegas?
- People are trying to be as safe as possible.
The strip does not look like the strip you both might know.
- And what do you do in Las Vegas?
- So I'm a special events manager.
- I know for you to be an event planner
means that you get [bleep] done.
So for you to not be able
to sort of make that first date happen, is crazy.
- Mm-hmm. - It was odd because
when we first met,
he messages me from a number
that I did not recognize at all.
- So you just randomly get a text message.
- Yes. Someone had my phone number.
- If someone was looking up an event coordinator in Las Vegas,
would they find your website
and would it have your phone number on it?
- For sure. My number has been listed publicly.
So initially getting that message, I was like,
"I am not too sure who you are."
And he was like, "We talked a while back
"and I was going through my phone
"and I came across your number
and I remembered how cute you were."
So for me, I'm thinking,
"Okay, well, he remembers what I look like."
- You mean because you are cute.
So for him to say "you're so cute," you're like,
"Oh, he must know what I look like."
- He's talking about me. He's talking about me.
- Maybe he's got the right Michael.
- So the first text message you got, this was back in 2017.
- Correct. I'm single, and at that point,
Dustin messages me the photos of him.
- You said he was fine. - He is. He is.
And he was pretty charming.
He also told me he was a lawyer in Los Angeles.
He's professional, seems like he has his own,
and he wants a family, so we bonded over that.
I thought the conversation was just so easy,
and he spoke to me about
how his ex cheated on him in their own home.
And so we kind of bonded over that as well
because I've been in relationships in the past
where I personally as well was cheated on.
And so things like that, we bonded over.
Like, there was just so many things I felt were compatible.
Great person,
funny, good-looking, all these things--
things that I'm looking for in a life partner.
I didn't get any red flags
based off of what he was saying to me.
- So what was the first red flag?
- [sighs] So the first red flag for me...
I was in Los Angeles,
but Dustin decided that he would like to go on a date.
He wanted to meet up.
He says, "My roommate is out for the night.
"So I wanted to know
"if maybe you wanted to come over to my house.
Here's my address." But when he gave me the address
there wasn't an apartment number listed.
It was just here's the address. I then said to him,
"Let me know when you're ready."
No response. And then I messaged him again.
"What's going on?" No response.
After, like, two hours, I just was like, I'm good.
Early the next afternoon, he responds back and he says
that he was in the shower
and when he got out of the shower,
he dropped his phone
and, like, his phone had broke in
and he wasn't able to respond.
He was like, "I thought you were gonna come over.
I don't know what happened." And I'm thinking,
"How was I gonna come over when you weren't responding?
and I don't know your apartment?" Like--
- Throw pebbles at every window.
- Right, because of everything else prior,
and I felt that he had been genuine,
I let that go, but after this incident,
he would communicate with me
from other phone numbers.
- Michael. - Here's the thing.
I would go back to that initial number of messaging him,
and then he would respond on that too.
- Hm.
- I'm thinking if he's a lawyer and if he does business,
maybe he has work phones.
- Obviously, this is all via text message initially.
How if in any way did the relationship evolve?
- I've only ever texted with Dustin.
- In three years?
- I know. - Wow.
- I know I should know better.
- Well-- - Yes.
- Give it to me. I deserve it. - [laughs]
- I have to take responsibility.
When I did attempt to push for a video chat,
or getting on a phone, he wouldn't respond.
Like, it was just always something odd.
- Do you even know his last name?
- The last name that he gave me was Shaker.
- So where are you guys at now?
You say you've ghosted him.
- Yeah, but recently he reaches out again
to see if we can rekindle and restart.
- Ugh! - And it's a new number.
- In your email to us you said, "Is he a stalker?"
- This has been years of you continuously reaching out
after I've stopped responding to you.
You're hitting me up from different numbers.
That's why I say stalker 'cause this is a little crazy.
- Right.
- He then told me he was going to Hawaii
because he needed to get out of LA.
That's where he's supposed to be at right now,
but I did some more sleuthing.
When we first had spoken years ago,
he told me he did not have social media
but I did reverse Google image search...
- Thatta boy. - Finally.
- I found him on Instagram with his name spelled
instead of D-U-S-T-I-N,
it was like, D-U... [bleep]
The number ten. His profile is private,
but he says he's the father to three cats.
Each of the cats have an Instagram page.
- All right, hold on. Hold on.
I'm about to bring it up. I found it.
- That's him. - Oh, this is him?
Okay. - Very cute.
- He owns all of these cats. - These are his cats?
Whoa, wait. These are like, famous cat accounts.
- What?
- They have hundreds of thousands of followers.
- This cat is cute. - Very cute cat.
- Cute cat. - Oh, wait, here, look.
- That's him. Is he tagged?
- Yes.
- Yeah. - Can we go to Winona the cat?
This is crazy. Scrolling below.
- This one, is that--
- That's a different gentleman who's in many other photos.
You click on that gentleman's name, third photo--
- Wait a minute.
- Wait a second. - [gasps]
- So they're married. - They are married.
- Dustin is fully wed.
- Dustin is married.
- And this was like, this year. - This year.
- Whoa.
- And I found this after I reached out to you.
- I'm gagged.
- I'm embarrassed to even think about the fact
that I've been involving myself
with an engaged or married person.
- Did you confront him? - I added him
and I'm waiting to see
if he actually accepts me as a friend.
- Ooh! - So at this point,
if you have been lying,
you now will see that I am on to you.
- Ooh!
- This is just way too much at this point.
I'm tired of waiting.
Why would you reach out to me to say,
"Oh, I'm going to Hawaii"?
- He's on his honeymoon. - On my "honeymoon."
- Yeah, so like, this is just so much.
- We could message the page you found and ask him?
- Will that even confirm it?
Because if the real Dustin is the guy in the profiles
and he's potentially cheating, is he gonna be like,
"Yep, that was me, caught red-handed,"
or is he gonna [bleep] lie about it?
- Whew.
- If your two options are that it is Dustin,
he's just been hiding his relationship
and now husband from you,
or it's someone else who actually might be single,
which would you rather it be?
- I think that I would-- - You want it to be him.
- I want it to be Dustin. - All right.
- I thought that he was really trying to develop
something serious with me--
you know, hopefully being married,
having a little family one day.
Just thought there was possibly an option of exploring that.
- Yeah.
- But at this point, I have questions and I want answers.
- Let us--let us see what we can find out.
- Okay, thank you both.
I appreciate it and hope to talk with you again soon.
- Later. - Bye.
- What do you think?
- I think we're in some [bleep].
Michael has feelings for Dustin.
It's not good to find out any information,
let alone the fact that this person is married
and probably on a romantic vacation.
- Ugh. - Either way,
this does not end positively, period.
There's no way that this is going to end well
for both parties.
Somebody is getting [bleep].
- ♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- I see you've got your investigation goggles on.
- They're my blue light glasses.
If we're gonna keep doing this [bleep],
I gotta protect my corneas or the iris or whatever it is.
- They look good though, I have to say.
- Thanks.
- All right, let's see. Where do we start with this?
So okay, so Michael's been talking to this guy Dustin.
It's been over three years. It looks very catfishy.
Michael got sent a photo of Dustin
that he image searched,
which actually came back with a hit to a profile.
The guy is the same in the picture on the page
as he is in the picture that he sent.
So two very distinct possibilities.
One, that Michael is talking to a guy
who is in a relationship and now married,
or that it's not that guy
and that someone's catfishing Michael
with a real guy and name
and it's just someone entirely different.
- Which sucks because then that could be someone's new marriage
that could get broken up
because of some bull[bleep] somebody else is concocting.
- Right.
Okay, so let's--let's see what we got here.
- Thanks for your help, guys. You truly are royalty.
Here's everything I know on Dustin.
His name is Dustin Shaker,
and he's a lawyer in Los Angeles.
He's got two of his phone numbers,
Both are 424, which is Los Angeles
and then an address which is 414 West 12th street.
- That's downtown. - And then he said,
"I've attached the pictures here that he has sent me.
Good luck. I hope you have good news."
What should we start with?
- I mean, he ran the picture.
That's how he found the Instagram.
- Yeah. I think we should run the phone numbers.
Let's do a phone look-up here.
Nothing.
- How many other ones did he send?
- Just one other one,
which is the most recent number.
So let's try that. Okay, again, nothing.
- Damn.
- Yeah, I guess it's interesting
Dustin gave Michael an actual address...
- Mm-hmm. - Right?
So I feel like let's just see where that is
because we don't often have an address.
Usually doesn't happen that it's in Los Angeles.
- Right, and downtown's not far from me.
[pensive music]
- Wow, I can't tell anything
from the street view though, so--
- I'm basically there. I can pop up.
- You might as well pop over there.
- I'm down.
- Whether or not that is an actual address
where someone could live is important.
- Mm-hmm. - Since you're so close,
we might as well just sort of check that box.
- Say no more. I'll go check it out.
Biggie, let's roll.
- All right, let me know once you're settled.
- It's sunny out here.
I haven't been outside in--
God, 48 hours at least.
- But what else can we do while you're driving?
I'm just gonna do a Google search for Dustin Shaker.
Oh, that's weird.
There's like no one named Dustin Shaker at all.
Isn't that wild?
- It's weird. - Yeah, right?
- Kay, I'm passing Figueroa.
- Oh, you're close now, so just turn right on Hope,
which is, like, coming up any moment.
- We're at a stop sign. - Right now. Go slow.
- There's a man outside with a cute Frenchie.
- [chuckles]
- Is it 414? That's what he said?
- That's what he sent us. Yeah.
- I'm gonna get out and look around.
- All right, so walk around.
See if you can find whether or not that's residential.
- Pitched. - All right.
So while you're walking around,
let me search Dustin's Instagram handle
and just see if it's connected to any other social media.
- Okay. - Wait, what's this?
I've got a hit here on the dus10 handle.
It says it found some potential owners,
one of which is named D [bleep] or Dustin [bleep].
- So that could be his real last name.
- That could be his real last name.
- You said 413? - 414.
- 414. What?
- Technically it would be on the other side of the street
'cause evens are on one side. Odds are on the other.
- Whoa, that is a warehouse for lease.
- Wow, that's crazy.
So it feels like that address was bogus.
- Right.
All right, so that answers that question, I guess.
- Right.
- Now, we've got this new Dustin [bleep].
Whoa, wait a second.
I just did a Facebook search for Dustin [bleep]
and what do you know? Our guy.
So that's his real name, is Dustin [bleep].
- Shut up. - And it's a Facebook page
and the background image is a picture of him
and some guy, I assume his husband.
It says he lives in West Hollywood, California.
- Ooh. - I mean, this is him.
This is his Facebook page.
Wait, here's the picture from his wedding.
- Well, we just don't know if that is
who Michael is actually talking to.
- Right.
All right, well, then I'm just gonna send him a message.
All right, hey, Dustin.
- Make it easy.
- This is a--yeah, this is a touchy subject.
'Cause if this isn't the guy, and his husband sees this--
- Well, yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
I feel like we have to have a very delicate approach
because we could be blowing up his spot.
- Right. Working on an episode and would love to chat.
Just keep it really simple. - Yeah.
- Give me a call when you can.
All right, message sent.
- I mean, if it is that Dustin,
he's probably not gonna respond to us the same way
he's probably not gonna respond to Michael anymore.
[phone dings] - Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I just got a response.
He said not sure what you wanna talk about.
I'm a happily married man.
- We never said anything about your marriage.
- Yeah, right? What's that about?
- We did not bring that up. You did.
- Super shady.
- You did. Yeah, exactly.
- I'm happily married too.
I'll send you the Zoom link and I can explain then.
- [chuckles]
- Dustin may have just tipped his hand.
Who texts that unless they're a cheater?
This has to be our guy.
- She's back.
- I have returned from my journey.
- Since we last spoke, Dustin responded.
He said sounds good, smiley face, to let's talk.
- Why would he immediately say "I'm happily married"?
That's so weird.
- I'm very suspicious right now.
- What are we gonna ask him?
- Maybe we should have Michael there.
I'm really thinking this could be the guy.
And if Michael's there, he can ask whatever questions
he needs to ask to sort of
get into the specifics of their relationship.
You know, based on what the response he gets from--
from Dustin is, it'll be very clear to him like,
"Oh, no, this is obviously not who I've been talking to."
- Right. - So let me text Michael.
Hey, Michael. Come back in the Zoom.
- We're back. - Hey.
- Ooh, hello.
- You have missed quite the afternoon.
- [sighs] - So we did some work.
We have something we definitely need you to see.
- [sighs] - I'll walk you through.
I'll share my--my screen here.
Okay, we ran his phone numbers,
and both of them came back with essentially nothing.
So the only other thing we had was the address,
and so Kamie hit the streets.
- So basically when I got down there,
that address, it's for lease. It's, like, a big warehouse
and there's nothing going on in there.
- Wow. Okay.
- But to give you a bull[bleep] address
is just more evidence that he could be a bull[bleep].
- [sighs]
- How are you feeling about all this?
- Yeah, right off the bat, I'm shocked.
I'm anxious to kind of figure out what else is there
that obviously I don't know and I've been lied to about.
So it sucks.
- Yeah.
So we did a search for the dus10 username...
- Mm-hmm. - And it came back with a hit.
The owner of that handle is someone named D [bleep].
Potentially Dustin [bleep].
Now, obviously he told you his name was Dustin Shaker.
- Correct.
- I did a search for Dustin [bleep] and look what I found:
a Facebook page for someone named Dustin [bleep].
- Wow, that's definitely him.
- But if we keep scrolling, we actually see
that the wedding photos-- and there are others.
- Like, looking at this,
I don't see anything that you've shown me
that matches with what he's told me to be correct.
- Right. - If this is his life,
this explains why he was so up and down, off and on.
This is embarrassing. It's insulting.
It's so wrong on so many levels.
- So we want to message him.
We didn't wanna obviously start any [bleep]
'cause we don't know what's going down here.
So I just said, "Hey, Dustin." - Right.
- "Working on an episode of 'Catfish,'
and would love to chat. Give me a call."
And he said, "Not sure what you want to talk about.
I'm a happily married man,"
which considering what I said to him,
sounds like a sketchy-ass response.
- So if he gets on here and he acts funny,
then we know it's him.
[phone blips] - Whoa, wait a second.
He actually just wrote and said, "I'm ready."
- Whew. - So we were gonna say,
if you're okay with it,
can we bring him into the Zoom, and we can all talk to him.
- Okay. - I'm gonna send him the link.
- Let's do it.
- And then let's just see if he joins.
- Are you nervous?
- I'm a bit anxious honestly... - Right.
- Considering I haven't been able to get this man
on a call or video in years.
[tense music]
- Oh. - Hey, what's up, man?
- How's it going?
- Hey. - Good, how are you?
- I'm good, I'm good. How are you guys?
- Good.
- So as you know, I'm Nev, this is Kamie,
and we're here with our friend Michael.
- Hi.
- And we're making an episode of "Catfish" right now.
You're familiar with the show?
- Yeah, correct, I am. - Okay, great.
So basically Michael's been talking to a guy now
for three years
who says his name is Dustin and has sent pictures of you.
- Okay.
- And we're trying to figure out if that is you.
Obviously, we understand this is a sensitive situation
because you're married and we don't--
we don't wanna accuse you
of being in an extramarital affair with Michael.
So we're just trying to clear this up.
- Well, it's definitely not me.
I mean, I've never met Michael before.
- [sighs]
- This Dustin person said that they were 32.
They were a lawyer, lived in downtown Los Angeles.
I mean, I do live in Los Angeles.
I'm not an attorney.
I'm kind of curious who's been using my pictures
and talking to you for three years.
I mean, that's crazy to me.
- Well, I mean, we'd like to find out who it is
so that we can get you to block them.
- I mean, yes. - Right.
- Yes, absolutely. - Yeah, I mean,
I'm really sorry this happened to you,
and I hope you find out who's been doing this.
I hope you get some answers and some clarity out of this.
- Thank you. I appreciate that,
and sorry about the involvement.
- All right, Dustin. Thanks, man. Have a good night.
Appreciate it. - Thank you.
- Thanks, Dustin. - Thank you.
- Bye. both: Bye.
- [sighs] My gosh.
To go out of your way to do this to someone else
who's happy in a relationship is terrible.
- Right. - This is not okay.
- You know, this person targeted you.
You didn't just accidentally
both swipe right on a dating app.
Someone wanted to lie to you.
- It feels malicious. It feels wrong.
The biggest question lingering for me--
why me?
- How did "Dustin" get Michael's number?
- Right.
- It feels like it has to be someone from Michael's past.
I think we're all on the same page
that we'd like to try and talk to this person.
- Yes. - So I'm gonna suggest
that we just send a text message.
Would you say his newest number?
- I would say the newest one.
- Hey, "Dustin."
- In quotes.
- This is Nev from "Catfish," and we're helping Michael
find out the truth about who you are.
We already know that you're not the guy in the pictures.
As you can imagine,
Michael was shocked and upset to learn all this,
but still open to hearing your side of the story
and letting you explain yourself.
Thanks. Nev.
Okay. Send it.
All right, well,
ball's in his court, so--
[phone dings] I--whoa, wait a second.
He said, "How does this work?
Would we meet in person?"
No, we would meet on Zoom.
Are you available now?
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want--I want to meet him,
but I'm not sure it's worth it right now.
After all this time, I wanna meet Michael in person
and somewhere public. - What?
I'm not meeting--no.
I'm good meeting whomever this is in person.
- Mm-hmm. - This is so weird.
- Oh. - He said, "Um, okay.
I'll think about it."
- Okay, great.
- Mull that over, sweetheart.
- Let's let "Dustin" figure this out
and hopefully come to the decision
that he does wanna talk to us.
- Okay, sounds good. Thank you both.
- Sorry, I know this was a rough day.
- Of course. Yeah.
- We'll talk to you in the morning.
- Yeah, see you in the morning. Bye. Thank you.
- All right, Michael. Good night.
- I half expected it to obviously
not be the real Dustin,
but to now have absolutely no idea who he's talking to
is not a situation I like to be in,
but we don't have a choice.
We just got to wait and see who pops up on that Zoom.
- I'm scared. Terrified, actually.
[upbeat music]
- Ready to figure out who this "Dustin" really is.
Oh, wow, I have a text from Michael.
Checking in with Kamie. [line trilling]
- What is happening?
- I got a text from Michael this morning
just that recently saying, "Need to talk, stat."
- I'm ready.
I'm grabbing my coffee. - All right.
I'll meet you over in the Zoom in a minute.
- All right. - All right, bye.
♪ ♪
- I'm here. - All right.
Are we ready to bring in Michael?
- Yes. - Okay, we are ready.
Oh, there he is.
- Michael. - Hello!
- Hey, what's up?
What's going on? - You're scaring me.
- I just received a weird text message from a number
that I don't recognize of course.
"Please don't meet Dustin. It's not good."
[dramatic music]
- Well, we figured that. - It feels, like,
he thought about it and he's trying to chicken out.
- Yeah. No, for sure that actually could be an option.
If he's trying to back out of now meeting.
- It would either have to be someone very, very close
to Dustin or him.
- Do we feel like we can completely 1,000%
without a shadow of a doubt eliminate the real Dustin?
- [sighs]
- I mean, no. Of course not. - Okay.
- I think you should respond, "Would love to know more.
"Can you chat?
- Okay, send.
- I guess, meanwhile, I could text Dustin--
the Dustin you've been talking to.
- Sure. - Just check in, right?
Hey, Dustin.
We are ready to speak with you now.
Here is our Zoom.
- Okay, I got a response back. - Oh, oh.
- They say, "Please don't try to meet him
"when he reaches back to you.
"It will be really ugly.
"I can't get into the middle of it,
but it's not going to be good for anyone,"
dot, dot, dot.
- What do they mean it can get ugly?
Maybe he is the guy in the pictures,
and maybe that's what could get ugly.
- Oh, my God. - What's uglier than infidelity
and a possible divorce?
[phone dings] - Oh, wait a second.
Whoa. - Is there a message?
- Whoa, Dustin just texted "Okay, I'll do it."
I mean, so I guess we're just standing by now.
- What if it's the real guy? What if it's the real guy?
- [sighs] - Then what?
I have anxiety.
- I'm getting so anxious right now.
- All right, I'm just saying, great.
We're ready for you.
- Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
♪ ♪
- Dustin just texted,
"Okay, I'll do it."
- I'm getting so anxious right now.
[dramatic music]
- Boom.
- Uh-oh.
- Feels like you guys know each other.
- Are you serious? Yeah, I know who this is.
- I'm Michael's ex-boyfriend.
- [laughs] Wow.
- We were dating the whole time
that he was talking to Dustin.
- We were not exclusive the whole time, Bradley.
- That's why I created Dustin, Michael,
is to test you.
We had just signed a lease in our apartment
just a month before. You were never around.
You weren't talking to me. You won't answer calls.
I had a gut feeling the whole time,
so I created Dustin to test you.
- Bradley, you and I, yes,
did sign a lease to move in together.
We moved in as roommates.
- Who cheated? You did. - I found out--I found out--
I did not cheat. - Oh, okay.
You didn't cheat on me with Dustin.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- After we officially ended things,
you agreed as well that you wanted to be friends
and see how that worked out.
- No, I never said that. - You wanted to be--you said--
- Don't put words in my mouth. - You also said--
- Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not the bad guy here.
- Yes, you are.
You created a profile
lying to continue to keep tabs on me
after you and I were not involved.
- Yeah. - We were not exclusive.
- Michael, I loved you.
♪ ♪
Why do you think I got an apartment with you?
I thought you were the one.
- Oh, my gosh. - I had already picked out
a ring for you and everything.
♪ ♪
- You did not love me. You're such a liar.
- Hold on. Let's take a quick time-out.
Obviously, you guys have a lot of feelings.
Let me just understand this.
So, Bradley, when--when did you and Michael start dating?
- July of 2016.
- How did you guys meet? - How did we meet, Bradley?
- We met online in San Diego. - We met on Grindr.
We met on Grindr. Be specific.
- I saw him on Grindr, I messaged,
and two weeks later he came to LA to see me in person.
- Got it. Then you guys decided to share an apartment.
Was that in Los Angeles or in Las Vegas?
- Los Angeles. - Los Angeles.
I built my life in Vegas,
but I was willing to split my time in LA.
- Got it. So you'd been dating for few months.
- Not exclusively, and not on the entire time,
even at that point.
- That's lies, but okay.
- I had no intention to be in LA the entire time.
- It sounds like for Bradley, this was, like,
the next step in your relationship,
but for you, Michael,
it sounds like it was more out of convenience.
- It was convenient.
I wasn't in love with him. - That's not true.
You asked me for a ring every other day.
- For fun!
There's nothing wrong with talking about the future.
- It's just fun to get engaged.
Got you. Okay.
- Did I have the ring?
- Obviously, there's room for interpretation
as to where things are going,
but at some point, Bradley, you became suspicious
that Michael wasn't exclusively dating you.
- It was about a month and a half
into us living together.
- Bradley, when you and Michael signed this lease,
were you under the impression
that you guys were going to be together in a relationship?
- A billion percent.
Boom, all of a sudden,
he's just not coming as much anymore.
He always has something to do.
Something--so I decided, you know, to create Dustin.
- Right. - It was just a test to see
because I wanted to know where it was going
because what Michael was saying and what Michael's actions,
they didn't meet up.
When I asked you where you were going, obviously,
I knew you were going to meet Dustin
when I set up the date as Dustin.
But you lied up and down and said,
"Oh, you're just going to meet your lawyer.
You're just going out for a dinner and everything."
You lied constantly about everything--
about who you were meeting, what you were doing,
who you were hanging out with.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Michael, is this all true?
- Yes.
I'm not denying that you and I had a relationship.
We were on at one point, and after when we were off,
we also were off for long periods of time...
- While you were living together?
- Even while we were living together.
- We became off and on from this situation.
Mentally, after I learned that he was just available
to talk to other guys,
exchange nude photos, meet out on dates.
- I didn't send him photos.
I didn't send him photos. - After I learned all of that,
I was gone. I was done.
- Shortly after you sent that text as Dustin,
how come you didn't just bring that up
and confront him about it and say,
"Look, clearly, we're not on the same page here.
"I texted you as Dustin. You were willing to talk to me.
Let's figure this out." Why didn't it all end there?
Why keep talking to him as Dustin
'cause I understand you--you would stop,
but then he would come back with a new number.
Why continue to engage with him
when the relationship appears to have been over?
Earlier today, Michael got a text message
from an unknown number, telling him not to meet you.
Was that you looking for an easy out,
trying to avoid meeting up?
- Yes, but at the end of the day,
continuing on as Dustin with him was just--
- Terrible. - Oh, terrible?
- He's married--
married and has a-- has a relationship.
- I don't know this guy. - That's not okay.
That's not okay! That's the point I'm making.
- What's not okay is we were in a relationship
and you cheated on me.
- We were not. I did not cheat on you.
- When was the last time that Michael and Bradley hooked up?
♪ ♪
- When was the last time that Michael and Bradley hooked up?
- A few weeks ago.
- What? - Hoo.
- Wow, are you gonna call the "Maury Show" or should I?
- I didn't know he was Dustin.
- If there's all this animosity going on,
how are we hooking up?
- Yeah.
- If I'm such a bad person, why are you still pursuing me
and why in some weird twisted way do you still love me?
- I'm not pursuing you at this point.
- I said, "were" you.
- I haven't been for quite some time.
- Okay.
- You reached out to him as Dustin just a few weeks ago.
- I've seen you recently where you're saying you wanted
to have a sexual relationship,
and that you're not opposed to dating me in the future.
- I never-- - Yes, you did, Bradley.
- No. - You are a liar.
Clearly this shows you are a--yes, you did.
Yes, you did. - These times that you're--
we have not talked about this now.
We did talk about this previously.
- Oh, my God. - I have an idea.
Why don't we take a quick break?
Everyone just sort of collect themselves.
Michael, are you okay
if we talk to Bradley alone for a minute?
- Cool.
- Thank you.
- Hello, Bradley. - Hey.
- Hello.
- How's it going?
- I'm slightly frustrated
apparently that Michael thought that we weren't
in this committed relationship together.
So caught me off guard to learn.
- Yeah. - There's just a part of me
that feels like you're still in love with Michael
and wanted to be connected in some kind of way.
Even though you feel like he's been a dick,
he's lied to you, and whatever else,
you're still actively catfishing him years later.
Is there a part of you that is still in love with Michael?
- In a twisted kind of way,
I can kind of say...
yes.
When your heart's still involved,
you can't just drop feelings like that.
You know, I did love Michael.
Like I said, we were moving into the next step
of our relationship, the next phase,
and then all of a sudden, that got broken to me,
but it wasn't broken to me by Michael.
It was broken to me via Dustin, and I never ended up
getting closure from the whole situation
because I never even got told from Michael
that we clearly weren't in a committed relationship.
I mean, we had a really good time together.
I always joke he wanted me to buy him a truck.
He wanted me to buy him a ring.
So I seriously considered getting a ring.
He's like trying to slap me in the face now
and say this whatever I had in my head was just in my head,
that it didn't even really exist.
- It's hurtful to have someone make it feel like they were
never on the same page with you the entire time.
- I really felt like Michael was the one.
It really hurts because I believe
that Michael was gonna be my--my other half.
- Where do you want things to go from here?
- It's broken and at this point,
I just wanna--I just want to separate fully.
- Yeah. - Well, then that means
you can't keep reaching out to him with fake phone numbers
and you definitely can't keep hooking up.
- Right. - Yes, 100%.
In my defense, I prefer more, you know, comfortability sex.
So obviously, I'm comfortable with him.
- Well, the [bleep] you know is always better
than the [bleep] you don't know.
- Okay. - That's much scarier.
- All right, well, look,
let us talk to Michael for a minute,
then we'll all come back together and finish this up.
- Okay, sounds good. - I love Bradley.
I feel bad 'cause I really feel like they could have something
if they didn't have such a [bleep] history.
- Some people are just better off going their separate ways.
- Hello.
- All right, give us the scoop. What are we missing here?
- I have never denied having had a relationship with him.
Him and I were not exclusive the entire time we knew
each other and the entire time we've known each other.
- Well, that's--do you feel like there is a version of this
where you may have given Bradley
the impression that you were in a relationship?
- If it's not exclusive and you don't say we're together
and you don't make that commitment,
then you're free to do what you want to do.
- It just feels like there's been a lot of distrust
and a lot of mixed signals and a lot of miscommunication.
- Right, and for any number of reasons,
the relationship with you and Bradley didn't work out.
- Correct.
- Obviously, this is upsetting for many reasons.
So let's talk about moving on.
- I personally don't see how there could ever be a resolve
or being able to move forward.
I just want this to be done and over.
- Great.
So I think we should all get back in this room together
and you guys can release each other from this relationship.
All right, I'm gonna get him back in.
All right. Hey, Bradley.
- Hey. - Can you both acknowledge
that at any given point in knowing each other,
you shared love for one another in some kind of capacity,
but now that moment has passed?
- 1 million percent. - Correct.
- But now--now it's just time to be done with this [bleep].
It's probably not gonna get better, so...
- No. [laughs]
- The thing that we can do now is just move on.
- I completely agree
with those-- those statements absolutely.
- Is there's any--any final thoughts or feelings
that you want to express to each other now...
- I've said my piece. I wish you the best.
I hope you don't contact me any forward.
You broke my heart.
I want nothing to do with you ever again.
- Are you done? - Go ahead.
- Bradley, I don't wish you ill.
I don't wish you well. I don't wish you anything,
and we won't be seeing or speaking to each other
ever again from this point moving forward.
- All right, well, very rarely
if ever does anything good come of catfishing,
so I just want it to sorta leave it at that.
Be well and stay safe and healthy.
- Same to you both. Thank you. - Good luck, guys.
- Bye, Kamie Queen. - Thank you.
- Bye, guys.
- ♪ Look what you've put me through ♪
♪ I'm walking on wires lately ♪
♪ I'm keeping my balance ♪
♪ But I don't think we can fix this ♪
♪ I won't get to ambitious, no ♪
♪ ♪
- My name is Jeremiah.
I've been talking to Linda.
Her charm was spellbinding.
- Ooh! - I think that she's a gift.
I do. - You know what we can search?
Cash App. Username is fakeheer.
- Fakeheer?
We can look up the house that she's at.
- What the hell? - Oh, [bleep].
to this guy, Dustin, for three years.
He's been stood up by Dustin five times.
- Michael. - If you have been lying,
I am onto you. - He's married.
- What's uglier than infidelity
and a possible divorce?
- We have an address.
That's right in, like, part of downtown.
- Say no more. I'll go check it out.
- Turn right on Hope, which is coming up any moment.
Ooh, that is a warehouse.
What?
- Uh-oh.
[upbeat music]
- Kamie.
Wassup?
- Hello. - Hey.
- I need to get my lip liner. - You don't need it.
- Yes, I do. How are the kids?
- Beau is fully potty trained.
- [gasps]
- We didn't even need to train him.
- Yay! - We just took the diapers away
and then just magically, uses the toilet now.
- He's a grown-ass man.
[laughs] - It's crazy.
- All right. - She's ready.
Let's check out what we got.
Oh, we got an email. The sender is Just Michael.
- Well, that makes it easy.
- And the subject is: Love of my life or a stalker?
- If you have to ask, probably the latter.
- [laughs]
Hello, King Nev and Queen Kamie.
- This is how I want to be addressed.
- Finally. - [laughs]
- My name is Michael. I'm originally from Texas,
but I currently reside in Las Vegas.
Back in 2017, I was contacted by a guy named Dustin,
who randomly messaged me from a number I didn't know.
He claims that we had spoken previously,
but I have no recollection of ever having spoken to him.
Either way, he was super sexy and a zaddy.
We hit it off and we planned a date,
but Dustin went ghost.
- ♪ 'Cause we are modern lovers ♪
♪ Hanging on each other ♪
- Since then I've been stood up by Dustin...
- What? - Five times.
- So why are we even still talking about this?
- I've tried to ghost him, but he keeps popping back up.
I still really like him a lot and I want him to be the one,
but I am worried this guy is a catfish.
He told me he doesn't have social media,
but I did some digging and I found a page.
He might be hiding something.
♪ ♪
I want to finally meet Dustin and date him for real,
but I'm afraid something really weird might be going on.
Dustin could be the love of my life or a total stalker.
Help! - ♪ This is modern love ♪
- Thanks, Texas Prince, Michael.
Wow. They met three years ago.
- But he's ghosted him five times
so that cancels out the three years.
- We gotta talk to Michael.
Hey, Michael, it's King Nev and Queen Kamie.
He wrote back. Hello, king and queen.
Oh, my God, seriously?
- Yaas.
- Come Zoom with us
and spill all the tea.
- [gasps]
- Hello.
- Oh! - Michael.
- Hey.
- I have something special I would love to show you.
- Oh. - Yes.
- Oh, yeah.
- So this is for you both, my king and queen.
- I'm putting it on. - Perfect.
- I'm modeling it over my bun.
- Yes, you're doing great.
- How are things in Las Vegas?
- People are trying to be as safe as possible.
The strip does not look like the strip you both might know.
- And what do you do in Las Vegas?
- So I'm a special events manager.
- I know for you to be an event planner
means that you get [bleep] done.
So for you to not be able
to sort of make that first date happen, is crazy.
- Mm-hmm. - It was odd because
when we first met,
he messages me from a number
that I did not recognize at all.
- So you just randomly get a text message.
- Yes. Someone had my phone number.
- If someone was looking up an event coordinator in Las Vegas,
would they find your website
and would it have your phone number on it?
- For sure. My number has been listed publicly.
So initially getting that message, I was like,
"I am not too sure who you are."
And he was like, "We talked a while back
"and I was going through my phone
"and I came across your number
and I remembered how cute you were."
So for me, I'm thinking,
"Okay, well, he remembers what I look like."
- You mean because you are cute.
So for him to say "you're so cute," you're like,
"Oh, he must know what I look like."
- He's talking about me. He's talking about me.
- Maybe he's got the right Michael.
- So the first text message you got, this was back in 2017.
- Correct. I'm single, and at that point,
Dustin messages me the photos of him.
- You said he was fine. - He is. He is.
And he was pretty charming.
He also told me he was a lawyer in Los Angeles.
He's professional, seems like he has his own,
and he wants a family, so we bonded over that.
I thought the conversation was just so easy,
and he spoke to me about
how his ex cheated on him in their own home.
And so we kind of bonded over that as well
because I've been in relationships in the past
where I personally as well was cheated on.
And so things like that, we bonded over.
Like, there was just so many things I felt were compatible.
Great person,
funny, good-looking, all these things--
things that I'm looking for in a life partner.
I didn't get any red flags
based off of what he was saying to me.
- So what was the first red flag?
- [sighs] So the first red flag for me...
I was in Los Angeles,
but Dustin decided that he would like to go on a date.
He wanted to meet up.
He says, "My roommate is out for the night.
"So I wanted to know
"if maybe you wanted to come over to my house.
Here's my address." But when he gave me the address
there wasn't an apartment number listed.
It was just here's the address. I then said to him,
"Let me know when you're ready."
No response. And then I messaged him again.
"What's going on?" No response.
After, like, two hours, I just was like, I'm good.
Early the next afternoon, he responds back and he says
that he was in the shower
and when he got out of the shower,
he dropped his phone
and, like, his phone had broke in
and he wasn't able to respond.
He was like, "I thought you were gonna come over.
I don't know what happened." And I'm thinking,
"How was I gonna come over when you weren't responding?
and I don't know your apartment?" Like--
- Throw pebbles at every window.
- Right, because of everything else prior,
and I felt that he had been genuine,
I let that go, but after this incident,
he would communicate with me
from other phone numbers.
- Michael. - Here's the thing.
I would go back to that initial number of messaging him,
and then he would respond on that too.
- Hm.
- I'm thinking if he's a lawyer and if he does business,
maybe he has work phones.
- Obviously, this is all via text message initially.
How if in any way did the relationship evolve?
- I've only ever texted with Dustin.
- In three years?
- I know. - Wow.
- I know I should know better.
- Well-- - Yes.
- Give it to me. I deserve it. - [laughs]
- I have to take responsibility.
When I did attempt to push for a video chat,
or getting on a phone, he wouldn't respond.
Like, it was just always something odd.
- Do you even know his last name?
- The last name that he gave me was Shaker.
- So where are you guys at now?
You say you've ghosted him.
- Yeah, but recently he reaches out again
to see if we can rekindle and restart.
- Ugh! - And it's a new number.
- In your email to us you said, "Is he a stalker?"
- This has been years of you continuously reaching out
after I've stopped responding to you.
You're hitting me up from different numbers.
That's why I say stalker 'cause this is a little crazy.
- Right.
- He then told me he was going to Hawaii
because he needed to get out of LA.
That's where he's supposed to be at right now,
but I did some more sleuthing.
When we first had spoken years ago,
he told me he did not have social media
but I did reverse Google image search...
- Thatta boy. - Finally.
- I found him on Instagram with his name spelled
instead of D-U-S-T-I-N,
it was like, D-U... [bleep]
The number ten. His profile is private,
but he says he's the father to three cats.
Each of the cats have an Instagram page.
- All right, hold on. Hold on.
I'm about to bring it up. I found it.
- That's him. - Oh, this is him?
Okay. - Very cute.
- He owns all of these cats. - These are his cats?
Whoa, wait. These are like, famous cat accounts.
- What?
- They have hundreds of thousands of followers.
- This cat is cute. - Very cute cat.
- Cute cat. - Oh, wait, here, look.
- That's him. Is he tagged?
- Yes.
- Yeah. - Can we go to Winona the cat?
This is crazy. Scrolling below.
- This one, is that--
- That's a different gentleman who's in many other photos.
You click on that gentleman's name, third photo--
- Wait a minute.
- Wait a second. - [gasps]
- So they're married. - They are married.
- Dustin is fully wed.
- Dustin is married.
- And this was like, this year. - This year.
- Whoa.
- And I found this after I reached out to you.
- I'm gagged.
- I'm embarrassed to even think about the fact
that I've been involving myself
with an engaged or married person.
- Did you confront him? - I added him
and I'm waiting to see
if he actually accepts me as a friend.
- Ooh! - So at this point,
if you have been lying,
you now will see that I am on to you.
- Ooh!
- This is just way too much at this point.
I'm tired of waiting.
Why would you reach out to me to say,
"Oh, I'm going to Hawaii"?
- He's on his honeymoon. - On my "honeymoon."
- Yeah, so like, this is just so much.
- We could message the page you found and ask him?
- Will that even confirm it?
Because if the real Dustin is the guy in the profiles
and he's potentially cheating, is he gonna be like,
"Yep, that was me, caught red-handed,"
or is he gonna [bleep] lie about it?
- Whew.
- If your two options are that it is Dustin,
he's just been hiding his relationship
and now husband from you,
or it's someone else who actually might be single,
which would you rather it be?
- I think that I would-- - You want it to be him.
- I want it to be Dustin. - All right.
- I thought that he was really trying to develop
something serious with me--
you know, hopefully being married,
having a little family one day.
Just thought there was possibly an option of exploring that.
- Yeah.
- But at this point, I have questions and I want answers.
- Let us--let us see what we can find out.
- Okay, thank you both.
I appreciate it and hope to talk with you again soon.
- Later. - Bye.
- What do you think?
- I think we're in some [bleep].
Michael has feelings for Dustin.
It's not good to find out any information,
let alone the fact that this person is married
and probably on a romantic vacation.
- Ugh. - Either way,
this does not end positively, period.
There's no way that this is going to end well
for both parties.
Somebody is getting [bleep].
- ♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- I see you've got your investigation goggles on.
- They're my blue light glasses.
If we're gonna keep doing this [bleep],
I gotta protect my corneas or the iris or whatever it is.
- They look good though, I have to say.
- Thanks.
- All right, let's see. Where do we start with this?
So okay, so Michael's been talking to this guy Dustin.
It's been over three years. It looks very catfishy.
Michael got sent a photo of Dustin
that he image searched,
which actually came back with a hit to a profile.
The guy is the same in the picture on the page
as he is in the picture that he sent.
So two very distinct possibilities.
One, that Michael is talking to a guy
who is in a relationship and now married,
or that it's not that guy
and that someone's catfishing Michael
with a real guy and name
and it's just someone entirely different.
- Which sucks because then that could be someone's new marriage
that could get broken up
because of some bull[bleep] somebody else is concocting.
- Right.
Okay, so let's--let's see what we got here.
- Thanks for your help, guys. You truly are royalty.
Here's everything I know on Dustin.
His name is Dustin Shaker,
and he's a lawyer in Los Angeles.
He's got two of his phone numbers,
Both are 424, which is Los Angeles
and then an address which is 414 West 12th street.
- That's downtown. - And then he said,
"I've attached the pictures here that he has sent me.
Good luck. I hope you have good news."
What should we start with?
- I mean, he ran the picture.
That's how he found the Instagram.
- Yeah. I think we should run the phone numbers.
Let's do a phone look-up here.
Nothing.
- How many other ones did he send?
- Just one other one,
which is the most recent number.
So let's try that. Okay, again, nothing.
- Damn.
- Yeah, I guess it's interesting
Dustin gave Michael an actual address...
- Mm-hmm. - Right?
So I feel like let's just see where that is
because we don't often have an address.
Usually doesn't happen that it's in Los Angeles.
- Right, and downtown's not far from me.
[pensive music]
- Wow, I can't tell anything
from the street view though, so--
- I'm basically there. I can pop up.
- You might as well pop over there.
- I'm down.
- Whether or not that is an actual address
where someone could live is important.
- Mm-hmm. - Since you're so close,
we might as well just sort of check that box.
- Say no more. I'll go check it out.
Biggie, let's roll.
- All right, let me know once you're settled.
- It's sunny out here.
I haven't been outside in--
God, 48 hours at least.
- But what else can we do while you're driving?
I'm just gonna do a Google search for Dustin Shaker.
Oh, that's weird.
There's like no one named Dustin Shaker at all.
Isn't that wild?
- It's weird. - Yeah, right?
- Kay, I'm passing Figueroa.
- Oh, you're close now, so just turn right on Hope,
which is, like, coming up any moment.
- We're at a stop sign. - Right now. Go slow.
- There's a man outside with a cute Frenchie.
- [chuckles]
- Is it 414? That's what he said?
- That's what he sent us. Yeah.
- I'm gonna get out and look around.
- All right, so walk around.
See if you can find whether or not that's residential.
- Pitched. - All right.
So while you're walking around,
let me search Dustin's Instagram handle
and just see if it's connected to any other social media.
- Okay. - Wait, what's this?
I've got a hit here on the dus10 handle.
It says it found some potential owners,
one of which is named D [bleep] or Dustin [bleep].
- So that could be his real last name.
- That could be his real last name.
- You said 413? - 414.
- 414. What?
- Technically it would be on the other side of the street
'cause evens are on one side. Odds are on the other.
- Whoa, that is a warehouse for lease.
- Wow, that's crazy.
So it feels like that address was bogus.
- Right.
All right, so that answers that question, I guess.
- Right.
- Now, we've got this new Dustin [bleep].
Whoa, wait a second.
I just did a Facebook search for Dustin [bleep]
and what do you know? Our guy.
So that's his real name, is Dustin [bleep].
- Shut up. - And it's a Facebook page
and the background image is a picture of him
and some guy, I assume his husband.
It says he lives in West Hollywood, California.
- Ooh. - I mean, this is him.
This is his Facebook page.
Wait, here's the picture from his wedding.
- Well, we just don't know if that is
who Michael is actually talking to.
- Right.
All right, well, then I'm just gonna send him a message.
All right, hey, Dustin.
- Make it easy.
- This is a--yeah, this is a touchy subject.
'Cause if this isn't the guy, and his husband sees this--
- Well, yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
I feel like we have to have a very delicate approach
because we could be blowing up his spot.
- Right. Working on an episode and would love to chat.
Just keep it really simple. - Yeah.
- Give me a call when you can.
All right, message sent.
- I mean, if it is that Dustin,
he's probably not gonna respond to us the same way
he's probably not gonna respond to Michael anymore.
[phone dings] - Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I just got a response.
He said not sure what you wanna talk about.
I'm a happily married man.
- We never said anything about your marriage.
- Yeah, right? What's that about?
- We did not bring that up. You did.
- Super shady.
- You did. Yeah, exactly.
- I'm happily married too.
I'll send you the Zoom link and I can explain then.
- [chuckles]
- Dustin may have just tipped his hand.
Who texts that unless they're a cheater?
This has to be our guy.
- She's back.
- I have returned from my journey.
- Since we last spoke, Dustin responded.
He said sounds good, smiley face, to let's talk.
- Why would he immediately say "I'm happily married"?
That's so weird.
- I'm very suspicious right now.
- What are we gonna ask him?
- Maybe we should have Michael there.
I'm really thinking this could be the guy.
And if Michael's there, he can ask whatever questions
he needs to ask to sort of
get into the specifics of their relationship.
You know, based on what the response he gets from--
from Dustin is, it'll be very clear to him like,
"Oh, no, this is obviously not who I've been talking to."
- Right. - So let me text Michael.
Hey, Michael. Come back in the Zoom.
- We're back. - Hey.
- Ooh, hello.
- You have missed quite the afternoon.
- [sighs] - So we did some work.
We have something we definitely need you to see.
- [sighs] - I'll walk you through.
I'll share my--my screen here.
Okay, we ran his phone numbers,
and both of them came back with essentially nothing.
So the only other thing we had was the address,
and so Kamie hit the streets.
- So basically when I got down there,
that address, it's for lease. It's, like, a big warehouse
and there's nothing going on in there.
- Wow. Okay.
- But to give you a bull[bleep] address
is just more evidence that he could be a bull[bleep].
- [sighs]
- How are you feeling about all this?
- Yeah, right off the bat, I'm shocked.
I'm anxious to kind of figure out what else is there
that obviously I don't know and I've been lied to about.
So it sucks.
- Yeah.
So we did a search for the dus10 username...
- Mm-hmm. - And it came back with a hit.
The owner of that handle is someone named D [bleep].
Potentially Dustin [bleep].
Now, obviously he told you his name was Dustin Shaker.
- Correct.
- I did a search for Dustin [bleep] and look what I found:
a Facebook page for someone named Dustin [bleep].
- Wow, that's definitely him.
- But if we keep scrolling, we actually see
that the wedding photos-- and there are others.
- Like, looking at this,
I don't see anything that you've shown me
that matches with what he's told me to be correct.
- Right. - If this is his life,
this explains why he was so up and down, off and on.
This is embarrassing. It's insulting.
It's so wrong on so many levels.
- So we want to message him.
We didn't wanna obviously start any [bleep]
'cause we don't know what's going down here.
So I just said, "Hey, Dustin." - Right.
- "Working on an episode of 'Catfish,'
and would love to chat. Give me a call."
And he said, "Not sure what you want to talk about.
I'm a happily married man,"
which considering what I said to him,
sounds like a sketchy-ass response.
- So if he gets on here and he acts funny,
then we know it's him.
[phone blips] - Whoa, wait a second.
He actually just wrote and said, "I'm ready."
- Whew. - So we were gonna say,
if you're okay with it,
can we bring him into the Zoom, and we can all talk to him.
- Okay. - I'm gonna send him the link.
- Let's do it.
- And then let's just see if he joins.
- Are you nervous?
- I'm a bit anxious honestly... - Right.
- Considering I haven't been able to get this man
on a call or video in years.
[tense music]
- Oh. - Hey, what's up, man?
- How's it going?
- Hey. - Good, how are you?
- I'm good, I'm good. How are you guys?
- Good.
- So as you know, I'm Nev, this is Kamie,
and we're here with our friend Michael.
- Hi.
- And we're making an episode of "Catfish" right now.
You're familiar with the show?
- Yeah, correct, I am. - Okay, great.
So basically Michael's been talking to a guy now
for three years
who says his name is Dustin and has sent pictures of you.
- Okay.
- And we're trying to figure out if that is you.
Obviously, we understand this is a sensitive situation
because you're married and we don't--
we don't wanna accuse you
of being in an extramarital affair with Michael.
So we're just trying to clear this up.
- Well, it's definitely not me.
I mean, I've never met Michael before.
- [sighs]
- This Dustin person said that they were 32.
They were a lawyer, lived in downtown Los Angeles.
I mean, I do live in Los Angeles.
I'm not an attorney.
I'm kind of curious who's been using my pictures
and talking to you for three years.
I mean, that's crazy to me.
- Well, I mean, we'd like to find out who it is
so that we can get you to block them.
- I mean, yes. - Right.
- Yes, absolutely. - Yeah, I mean,
I'm really sorry this happened to you,
and I hope you find out who's been doing this.
I hope you get some answers and some clarity out of this.
- Thank you. I appreciate that,
and sorry about the involvement.
- All right, Dustin. Thanks, man. Have a good night.
Appreciate it. - Thank you.
- Thanks, Dustin. - Thank you.
- Bye. both: Bye.
- [sighs] My gosh.
To go out of your way to do this to someone else
who's happy in a relationship is terrible.
- Right. - This is not okay.
- You know, this person targeted you.
You didn't just accidentally
both swipe right on a dating app.
Someone wanted to lie to you.
- It feels malicious. It feels wrong.
The biggest question lingering for me--
why me?
- How did "Dustin" get Michael's number?
- Right.
- It feels like it has to be someone from Michael's past.
I think we're all on the same page
that we'd like to try and talk to this person.
- Yes. - So I'm gonna suggest
that we just send a text message.
Would you say his newest number?
- I would say the newest one.
- Hey, "Dustin."
- In quotes.
- This is Nev from "Catfish," and we're helping Michael
find out the truth about who you are.
We already know that you're not the guy in the pictures.
As you can imagine,
Michael was shocked and upset to learn all this,
but still open to hearing your side of the story
and letting you explain yourself.
Thanks. Nev.
Okay. Send it.
All right, well,
ball's in his court, so--
[phone dings] I--whoa, wait a second.
He said, "How does this work?
Would we meet in person?"
No, we would meet on Zoom.
Are you available now?
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want--I want to meet him,
but I'm not sure it's worth it right now.
After all this time, I wanna meet Michael in person
and somewhere public. - What?
I'm not meeting--no.
I'm good meeting whomever this is in person.
- Mm-hmm. - This is so weird.
- Oh. - He said, "Um, okay.
I'll think about it."
- Okay, great.
- Mull that over, sweetheart.
- Let's let "Dustin" figure this out
and hopefully come to the decision
that he does wanna talk to us.
- Okay, sounds good. Thank you both.
- Sorry, I know this was a rough day.
- Of course. Yeah.
- We'll talk to you in the morning.
- Yeah, see you in the morning. Bye. Thank you.
- All right, Michael. Good night.
- I half expected it to obviously
not be the real Dustin,
but to now have absolutely no idea who he's talking to
is not a situation I like to be in,
but we don't have a choice.
We just got to wait and see who pops up on that Zoom.
- I'm scared. Terrified, actually.
[upbeat music]
- Ready to figure out who this "Dustin" really is.
Oh, wow, I have a text from Michael.
Checking in with Kamie. [line trilling]
- What is happening?
- I got a text from Michael this morning
just that recently saying, "Need to talk, stat."
- I'm ready.
I'm grabbing my coffee. - All right.
I'll meet you over in the Zoom in a minute.
- All right. - All right, bye.
♪ ♪
- I'm here. - All right.
Are we ready to bring in Michael?
- Yes. - Okay, we are ready.
Oh, there he is.
- Michael. - Hello!
- Hey, what's up?
What's going on? - You're scaring me.
- I just received a weird text message from a number
that I don't recognize of course.
"Please don't meet Dustin. It's not good."
[dramatic music]
- Well, we figured that. - It feels, like,
he thought about it and he's trying to chicken out.
- Yeah. No, for sure that actually could be an option.
If he's trying to back out of now meeting.
- It would either have to be someone very, very close
to Dustin or him.
- Do we feel like we can completely 1,000%
without a shadow of a doubt eliminate the real Dustin?
- [sighs]
- I mean, no. Of course not. - Okay.
- I think you should respond, "Would love to know more.
"Can you chat?
- Okay, send.
- I guess, meanwhile, I could text Dustin--
the Dustin you've been talking to.
- Sure. - Just check in, right?
Hey, Dustin.
We are ready to speak with you now.
Here is our Zoom.
- Okay, I got a response back. - Oh, oh.
- They say, "Please don't try to meet him
"when he reaches back to you.
"It will be really ugly.
"I can't get into the middle of it,
but it's not going to be good for anyone,"
dot, dot, dot.
- What do they mean it can get ugly?
Maybe he is the guy in the pictures,
and maybe that's what could get ugly.
- Oh, my God. - What's uglier than infidelity
and a possible divorce?
[phone dings] - Oh, wait a second.
Whoa. - Is there a message?
- Whoa, Dustin just texted "Okay, I'll do it."
I mean, so I guess we're just standing by now.
- What if it's the real guy? What if it's the real guy?
- [sighs] - Then what?
I have anxiety.
- I'm getting so anxious right now.
- All right, I'm just saying, great.
We're ready for you.
- Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
♪ ♪
- Dustin just texted,
"Okay, I'll do it."
- I'm getting so anxious right now.
[dramatic music]
- Boom.
- Uh-oh.
- Feels like you guys know each other.
- Are you serious? Yeah, I know who this is.
- I'm Michael's ex-boyfriend.
- [laughs] Wow.
- We were dating the whole time
that he was talking to Dustin.
- We were not exclusive the whole time, Bradley.
- That's why I created Dustin, Michael,
is to test you.
We had just signed a lease in our apartment
just a month before. You were never around.
You weren't talking to me. You won't answer calls.
I had a gut feeling the whole time,
so I created Dustin to test you.
- Bradley, you and I, yes,
did sign a lease to move in together.
We moved in as roommates.
- Who cheated? You did. - I found out--I found out--
I did not cheat. - Oh, okay.
You didn't cheat on me with Dustin.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- After we officially ended things,
you agreed as well that you wanted to be friends
and see how that worked out.
- No, I never said that. - You wanted to be--you said--
- Don't put words in my mouth. - You also said--
- Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not the bad guy here.
- Yes, you are.
You created a profile
lying to continue to keep tabs on me
after you and I were not involved.
- Yeah. - We were not exclusive.
- Michael, I loved you.
♪ ♪
Why do you think I got an apartment with you?
I thought you were the one.
- Oh, my gosh. - I had already picked out
a ring for you and everything.
♪ ♪
- You did not love me. You're such a liar.
- Hold on. Let's take a quick time-out.
Obviously, you guys have a lot of feelings.
Let me just understand this.
So, Bradley, when--when did you and Michael start dating?
- July of 2016.
- How did you guys meet? - How did we meet, Bradley?
- We met online in San Diego. - We met on Grindr.
We met on Grindr. Be specific.
- I saw him on Grindr, I messaged,
and two weeks later he came to LA to see me in person.
- Got it. Then you guys decided to share an apartment.
Was that in Los Angeles or in Las Vegas?
- Los Angeles. - Los Angeles.
I built my life in Vegas,
but I was willing to split my time in LA.
- Got it. So you'd been dating for few months.
- Not exclusively, and not on the entire time,
even at that point.
- That's lies, but okay.
- I had no intention to be in LA the entire time.
- It sounds like for Bradley, this was, like,
the next step in your relationship,
but for you, Michael,
it sounds like it was more out of convenience.
- It was convenient.
I wasn't in love with him. - That's not true.
You asked me for a ring every other day.
- For fun!
There's nothing wrong with talking about the future.
- It's just fun to get engaged.
Got you. Okay.
- Did I have the ring?
- Obviously, there's room for interpretation
as to where things are going,
but at some point, Bradley, you became suspicious
that Michael wasn't exclusively dating you.
- It was about a month and a half
into us living together.
- Bradley, when you and Michael signed this lease,
were you under the impression
that you guys were going to be together in a relationship?
- A billion percent.
Boom, all of a sudden,
he's just not coming as much anymore.
He always has something to do.
Something--so I decided, you know, to create Dustin.
- Right. - It was just a test to see
because I wanted to know where it was going
because what Michael was saying and what Michael's actions,
they didn't meet up.
When I asked you where you were going, obviously,
I knew you were going to meet Dustin
when I set up the date as Dustin.
But you lied up and down and said,
"Oh, you're just going to meet your lawyer.
You're just going out for a dinner and everything."
You lied constantly about everything--
about who you were meeting, what you were doing,
who you were hanging out with.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Michael, is this all true?
- Yes.
I'm not denying that you and I had a relationship.
We were on at one point, and after when we were off,
we also were off for long periods of time...
- While you were living together?
- Even while we were living together.
- We became off and on from this situation.
Mentally, after I learned that he was just available
to talk to other guys,
exchange nude photos, meet out on dates.
- I didn't send him photos.
I didn't send him photos. - After I learned all of that,
I was gone. I was done.
- Shortly after you sent that text as Dustin,
how come you didn't just bring that up
and confront him about it and say,
"Look, clearly, we're not on the same page here.
"I texted you as Dustin. You were willing to talk to me.
Let's figure this out." Why didn't it all end there?
Why keep talking to him as Dustin
'cause I understand you--you would stop,
but then he would come back with a new number.
Why continue to engage with him
when the relationship appears to have been over?
Earlier today, Michael got a text message
from an unknown number, telling him not to meet you.
Was that you looking for an easy out,
trying to avoid meeting up?
- Yes, but at the end of the day,
continuing on as Dustin with him was just--
- Terrible. - Oh, terrible?
- He's married--
married and has a-- has a relationship.
- I don't know this guy. - That's not okay.
That's not okay! That's the point I'm making.
- What's not okay is we were in a relationship
and you cheated on me.
- We were not. I did not cheat on you.
- When was the last time that Michael and Bradley hooked up?
♪ ♪
- When was the last time that Michael and Bradley hooked up?
- A few weeks ago.
- What? - Hoo.
- Wow, are you gonna call the "Maury Show" or should I?
- I didn't know he was Dustin.
- If there's all this animosity going on,
how are we hooking up?
- Yeah.
- If I'm such a bad person, why are you still pursuing me
and why in some weird twisted way do you still love me?
- I'm not pursuing you at this point.
- I said, "were" you.
- I haven't been for quite some time.
- Okay.
- You reached out to him as Dustin just a few weeks ago.
- I've seen you recently where you're saying you wanted
to have a sexual relationship,
and that you're not opposed to dating me in the future.
- I never-- - Yes, you did, Bradley.
- No. - You are a liar.
Clearly this shows you are a--yes, you did.
Yes, you did. - These times that you're--
we have not talked about this now.
We did talk about this previously.
- Oh, my God. - I have an idea.
Why don't we take a quick break?
Everyone just sort of collect themselves.
Michael, are you okay
if we talk to Bradley alone for a minute?
- Cool.
- Thank you.
- Hello, Bradley. - Hey.
- Hello.
- How's it going?
- I'm slightly frustrated
apparently that Michael thought that we weren't
in this committed relationship together.
So caught me off guard to learn.
- Yeah. - There's just a part of me
that feels like you're still in love with Michael
and wanted to be connected in some kind of way.
Even though you feel like he's been a dick,
he's lied to you, and whatever else,
you're still actively catfishing him years later.
Is there a part of you that is still in love with Michael?
- In a twisted kind of way,
I can kind of say...
yes.
When your heart's still involved,
you can't just drop feelings like that.
You know, I did love Michael.
Like I said, we were moving into the next step
of our relationship, the next phase,
and then all of a sudden, that got broken to me,
but it wasn't broken to me by Michael.
It was broken to me via Dustin, and I never ended up
getting closure from the whole situation
because I never even got told from Michael
that we clearly weren't in a committed relationship.
I mean, we had a really good time together.
I always joke he wanted me to buy him a truck.
He wanted me to buy him a ring.
So I seriously considered getting a ring.
He's like trying to slap me in the face now
and say this whatever I had in my head was just in my head,
that it didn't even really exist.
- It's hurtful to have someone make it feel like they were
never on the same page with you the entire time.
- I really felt like Michael was the one.
It really hurts because I believe
that Michael was gonna be my--my other half.
- Where do you want things to go from here?
- It's broken and at this point,
I just wanna--I just want to separate fully.
- Yeah. - Well, then that means
you can't keep reaching out to him with fake phone numbers
and you definitely can't keep hooking up.
- Right. - Yes, 100%.
In my defense, I prefer more, you know, comfortability sex.
So obviously, I'm comfortable with him.
- Well, the [bleep] you know is always better
than the [bleep] you don't know.
- Okay. - That's much scarier.
- All right, well, look,
let us talk to Michael for a minute,
then we'll all come back together and finish this up.
- Okay, sounds good. - I love Bradley.
I feel bad 'cause I really feel like they could have something
if they didn't have such a [bleep] history.
- Some people are just better off going their separate ways.
- Hello.
- All right, give us the scoop. What are we missing here?
- I have never denied having had a relationship with him.
Him and I were not exclusive the entire time we knew
each other and the entire time we've known each other.
- Well, that's--do you feel like there is a version of this
where you may have given Bradley
the impression that you were in a relationship?
- If it's not exclusive and you don't say we're together
and you don't make that commitment,
then you're free to do what you want to do.
- It just feels like there's been a lot of distrust
and a lot of mixed signals and a lot of miscommunication.
- Right, and for any number of reasons,
the relationship with you and Bradley didn't work out.
- Correct.
- Obviously, this is upsetting for many reasons.
So let's talk about moving on.
- I personally don't see how there could ever be a resolve
or being able to move forward.
I just want this to be done and over.
- Great.
So I think we should all get back in this room together
and you guys can release each other from this relationship.
All right, I'm gonna get him back in.
All right. Hey, Bradley.
- Hey. - Can you both acknowledge
that at any given point in knowing each other,
you shared love for one another in some kind of capacity,
but now that moment has passed?
- 1 million percent. - Correct.
- But now--now it's just time to be done with this [bleep].
It's probably not gonna get better, so...
- No. [laughs]
- The thing that we can do now is just move on.
- I completely agree
with those-- those statements absolutely.
- Is there's any--any final thoughts or feelings
that you want to express to each other now...
- I've said my piece. I wish you the best.
I hope you don't contact me any forward.
You broke my heart.
I want nothing to do with you ever again.
- Are you done? - Go ahead.
- Bradley, I don't wish you ill.
I don't wish you well. I don't wish you anything,
and we won't be seeing or speaking to each other
ever again from this point moving forward.
- All right, well, very rarely
if ever does anything good come of catfishing,
so I just want it to sorta leave it at that.
Be well and stay safe and healthy.
- Same to you both. Thank you. - Good luck, guys.
- Bye, Kamie Queen. - Thank you.
- Bye, guys.
- ♪ Look what you've put me through ♪
♪ I'm walking on wires lately ♪
♪ I'm keeping my balance ♪
♪ But I don't think we can fix this ♪
♪ I won't get to ambitious, no ♪
♪ ♪
- My name is Jeremiah.
I've been talking to Linda.
Her charm was spellbinding.
- Ooh! - I think that she's a gift.
I do. - You know what we can search?
Cash App. Username is fakeheer.
- Fakeheer?
We can look up the house that she's at.
- What the hell? - Oh, [bleep].