Love Lives - A conversation with the women in The Tinder Swindler

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

This week, we have a special bonus episode featuring a conversation with the women of The Tinder Swindler. The new Netflix documentary tells the story of a notorious conman who allegedly used the Tinder dating app to live a life of luxury while defrauding women across Europe. In this episode, Olivia speaks to the film’s director, Felicity Morris, producer, Bernie Higgins, and its stars: Cecilia Fjellhøy and Pernilla Sjoholm. They discuss how the film came to be, what it was like for the women to relive their traumatic experiences, and why they’re still fighting for justice. They also talk about the inordinate amount of victim blaming they have been subjected to. The documentary is available to watch on Netfilx now.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and more. This week we have a special bonus episode for you featuring a conversation with the women of the Tinder Swindler. The new Netflix documentary tells the story of a notorious conman who allegedly used the Tinder dating app to live a life of luxury while defrauding women across Europe. In this episode, which was taken from a live recording on the 1st of February, I speak to the film's director, Felicity Morris, its producer, Bernie Higgins, and its stars, Cecilia Felhoi and Pernilla Schoelholm. We discuss how the film came to be, what it was like for the women to relive their traumatic experiences and why they're still fighting for justice. We also talk about the inordinate

amount of victim blaming they've been subjected to. Enjoy the show. Hello, everyone. I am delighted to welcome back to the stage director Felicity Morris and producer Bernie Higgins. And also joining us from the front row, Cecilia Falhoy and Vanilla Shulham. from the front row Cecilia Valhoy and Vanilla Shulham. Thank you everyone so much for being here. I have so many questions to ask about this brilliant remarkable film but initially I guess I want to start with Felicity, what drew you to telling the story in the first place? Well originally we

came across the story because obviously Cecilia had gone to the press bravely gone to the press in Norway and we should just say now that you know what she went through was horrendous obviously in the film we only have 90 minutes to tell this story and obviously Cecilia endured months and months and months of just awful behavior from Simon you know it was very much a coercive controlling relationship so if at the start of the film people sort of found that fun and funny actually for Cecilia it was an enormous trauma that she went through um but she swallowed that down and went to the press because she knew at that point that Simon was still out there he was still doing this to other women

and she knew that by exposing him that that was sort of the best she could do because at that point the police weren't taking her seriously you know in crimes like these in you know emotional cons dating cons often it's the victims who are blamed for what has happened to them and these women here have done nothing wrong you know all they did was want to find love and you know want to sort of you know find their person find their soulmate anyway so she went to the she went to the press and the VG piece obviously went viral you know for reasons that we sort of all watched the film the Tinder Swindler you're sort of drawn to a story like that and then

we came across it and um met panilla and cecilia very early on and just thought how amazing they were and how um fantastic storytellers they are um and yeah and obviously panilla and cecilia you've been through so much how did you feel when you were first asked about taking part in this film and sharing your story in this way? I think like from the beginning, it was just such an emotional journey. We were just in the process of like really trying to put his face out there as much as possible. So when we got an approach to participate in this documentary, and of course, we had no imagination that it was gonna be released in

such a big platform we would basically just like hell yeah just like anything we can do to put him out there and just not to let any more victims come along his side we we were signed up for it because i think what's happened when he was jailed in in greece and we were thinking okay this is the moment and then we saw okay he's getting yeah he's in jail but not for what it did to so many people here in Europe and then when we saw this amazing opportunity to do it on a much larger scale it's it's it is worth it we're going through it once more but it is worth it and Bernie how did you go about preparing Penilla and Cecilia for taking part in the film and talking them through the interview process and reliving this trauma?

Yeah, I mean, that was really the biggest ask for Cecilia and Penilla and Eileen, because while they had done quite a lot of press following the VG article, that was kind of a hop and a skip and a jump through the story. And it was kind of just a bullet point kind of reenactment of it so we really had to prepare them for the fact that they were going to have to go through it from start to finish we spent days and days together on zooms they were very patient taking us through not only the beginning of when they met simon but who they were when they you know signed up for tinder what they were looking for, what they were hoping for, what they were bringing into that relationship, because everyone makes themselves vulnerable when they put themselves online. So it was really important to understand where they were starting from. But I think the biggest ask that we made of them was to really take themselves back emotionally through the interview. You know, Cecilia,

God lover, we interviewed her for two days straight but now I got off lightly with just one 14 hour session yeah it was so nice nothing but the key thing was I know you hit him and I know you're really angry with him and I know you're outraged and I promise you we were going to give you a platform to express that outrage but for now we need you to be in the moment of that first date tell me how you felt when you saw him

tell me about the first kiss I mean Cecilia's resistance to telling us about the first kiss like I hate him I know but just try and put yourself back to when you didn't hate him you couldn't tell she did an amazing job I know but just try and put yourself back to when you didn't hit him. You couldn't tell. She did an amazing job. I know it really is testament to the girls like how much

because we knew and Fliss and I had discussed this a lot if the audience are going to buy into this they can't just hear about it like a normal catfishing story. They have to live the Simon experience and the only way they could do that is if they took us with them on the journey and they did such an exceptional job and we're so proud of them they were just so amazing

but what i have to say just very quickly is that it was just amazing how you spend so much time just getting to know us as people as well as i said there was one time when i was getting ready for a date when i was talking to bernie on zoom as well so they really got to know us as people you know and that like the kind of people we are and i thought that was important as well. So they really got to know us as people, you know, and that like the kind of people we are. And I thought that was important as well. Not just the story, but who we are. I sometimes say that the best like therapist

that I've met throughout this entire year since this happened has actually been Bernie. So if you ever need an extra job. You touched on it just then, but I want to talk about obviously what actually happened in those initial stages when, you know, Cecilia, you talk about with Simon, he was doing all of these grand romantic gestures

and sending you ridiculously expensive flowers, you know, flying to Oslo to see you at the last minute, sending you all of these gifts. And the way you relay it, it really does seem like a fairy tale. You know, watching that back and thinking about that now what what do you feel when you when you look back on that now I think that's why it's so difficult to watch it back because I like when you see it up on the screen there is just I feel as I said like I feel really stupid and that's my biggest fear is that other people watching it is going to think oh my god she's so stupid look at what's going on behind her back but um yeah at the time it it was it felt

like it felt like my my person you know um but it's just amazing how people can be that evil so and panilla you weren't in a romantic relationship with simon i know you've previously said that you know the thing that is so cunning about him is that you know he adapted his personality to suit whoever he was trying to manipulate at the time what was your experience of having him as a friend before you knew who he really was for me to be honest before i found out and i mean like it it took seven months before he started to fraud me I would honestly say that this was like the best friend you could ever ask for I mean like he was always there he was always there was a good listener and I mean like he was funny to hang around with because it was sort of like he also adapted your humor to understand like what you

think is funny or something he he is a master so he was a very pleasant person to to be around and you you had fun with him just to sit around and have just a normal cup of coffee and i think that was so important when we met each other because i'd been alone for half a year and i didn't speak to any other victims and it's just like and you see all these pictures and videos and it's like he seems like such a douche it's like what is going on and then i spoke to pernella and it's just like he is a really funny normal doesn't take himself too seriously can laugh about himself and it's just like thank god because you needed that because you were going insane you know like he looks like but he is a really or the persona he's trying to

portray is very good i mean like when you got to see all the videos and stuff that was out there on him, I was like, who is that? That is disgusting behavior. You were shocked. I mean, this is not a guy you're sitting having coffee when they're going to the museum with. This is a totally different person. So it was quite shocking. I want to ask you both about the moment that you discovered

that this man was not who you thought he was. You know, as we saw in the film, Cecilia, for you, it was it was with amex wasn't it when they presented you with that information i got to understand before it got to a point where he turned around on me and as you can see that he changes behavior and he got really mad at me as well like he had lost more money than me so it was more sorry for him and he wanted to kill himself so he's very good at um like so that's when you knew but you need to get someone else to tell you the truth because Simon will never tell you the truth so that's why I needed to go to Amex and of course show the picture and then but yeah how how difficult was that for you to accept what these strangers at a

credit card company were telling you was the truth as opposed to this person who you thought you were in a relationship with you know that must have taken you a long time to actually accept that that was the reality as opposed to what this man had fooled you into thinking yeah at that point in time I was just so physically as like the pressure that he put on me for so many weeks it was almost like I was heightened all the time so when they really told me it was like almost like I said it was like a curtain going like going down and you really understood what kind of pressure that he had he had actually put on you and it sounds so bad to say because I know like Amex we have not some great things to say about them now but at that point in time they were really my savior because I was so

scared that they were going to go after me I you know when you give someone your card and if you've never been in problems you know that you shouldn't do that and I had done that and I was so scared that they're going to go after me and they said that you know you have a full-time job this is his full-time job and you should never be worried and they were bringing up their own daughters and they would never want them so they were really nice to me and I think that kind of messed a bit with my own head because they told me not to contact any other victims and I think that's maybe the biggest mistake that I did not to reach out and what was your reaction Penilla when you when you found out that this was something that this man did for a living

well I was very upset with him but I was also very upset with the system like for example like Cecilia is saying I mean like I had my American Express card for years. So I don't think that it is a very good client service, to be honest. Not so happy. But I was also very disappointed with the system in general. I mean, police, everyone had my information. And to be honest, throughout my entire story,

what was the worst feeling for me is that so many people knew about me but no one even thought I was worth a five second phone call just to call me and up and say what was going on in my life and the first time that happened is when VG contacted me and I think that was the most traumatizing experience for me and I never wanted another person to feel as little and so unimportant as I did at that point and that is what sort of like gave us this like fighting spirit to get back and just I never wanted anyone to have that feeling that I had what I was sitting with and I want to get to the experiences of victim blaming because I think that's obviously an

incredibly important thing that this film addresses and aims to combat. And that is something that we absolutely need to talk about. Before we get to that, I want to talk a bit about the kind of global element of this film, because it really does take you all around the world. I mean, how many countries are there? Lucky Simon. I wanted to ask you, Felicity, you know, how did that kind of global impact, global element impact your storytelling? Obviously, it was a big draw for us in terms of the fact, you know, that we had contributors who were sort of, you know, all over the world, really. I think that we sort of always said that we wanted the audience to kind of go on a journey and feel like they were sort of globetrotting.

You know, fortunately, Peneligo's on fabulous holiday. And what was great about sort of all of this is that, you know, everyone now we all take photos and videos of where we are. So we didn't actually get to travel. of where we are so um we didn't actually get to travel um we went to sort of Amsterdam and um Stockholm and Norway um but we were handed over just a you know a huge massive archive which allowed us to you know tell this sprawling story in almost a kind of sort of I wanted it to feel a bit like a kind of a big you know amazing Instagram sort of adventure story that everyone was going on so yeah it was a it was a big draw and of course you know within that you're knowing that Simon is dotting from country to country

which is exactly you know he knows that by doing that by committing these smaller crimes in you know different countries across the world that it's very very difficult then for the police to kind of um to find him and to you know bring a case against him um but yeah it was it was a really great part of the story and you know good for sort of a global audience like netflix and so let's go back to norway for a second so that first um that newspaper piece that came out and you know like like you like we touched on earlier there was a lot of turning against Penilla and Cecilia and there was a lot of victim blaming and it's it's it's a very um grim reality that I think women live with in this world that you know and it's not just about fraud but any

time that there is something that happens to a woman it is almost always seen as their fault And unfortunately, you know this this situation is no different You know, I know that you've both previously said that people have called you gold diggers But if that was true, then you would be the worst call diggers in the world. We would totally get fired in a second was true then you would be the worst call tickers in the world which we would totally get fired in a second really bad were they taking money or giving money um i want to ask you both why do you think that people did react like that and is that something that you are still experiencing now i think it's it's kind of weird but just this short period that we've done press now it feels that it's turning a bit but the first time around was really really bad like and i wasn't as prepared

as i am now and went into the different comment sections and i shouldn't have done but started maybe commenting and discussing with people and you should never do that but it was a really as i said like as this is something i never would have how can she go on that private jet like this is yeah like a stupid blonde woman and i i mean like when we started this journey when we went to the magazine we understood that this was coming i mean like we just decided just like throw us under the bus do whatever just as long as he cannot keep on going so it wasn't like it came as a surprise but I mean like for now we're really hoping um with this movie as well that it would help a little bit because we're going to be completely honest like before this happened to us we would be the same type of people when we

read this kind of stories like oh my god who would do that if you're that stupid blame yourself i'm gonna be 100 honest that is what i thought and still you relive this and you really learned and i really want to change this because this is when we do this victim shaming it's what makes these fraudsters and everyone to keep on going because then we hide and we get ashamed and we go through psychological trauma i mean like we would just speak up and go to the police report them and everything this wouldn't happen at this level like just today i got a message from one fraud victim in norway that said like oh i'm so scared of going i'm scared that they're gonna

laugh of me and just like just drop the case immediately like what how was your experience and i can't say like this very difficult for me to go and then say to her you know the police is going to take this seriously and you're going to get tons of help because the only help that we have actually been getting is from the media to be very honest with you and that is a true shame uh because this this team as i have to say, it's not just him, it's more people than just him, has been living large for way too many years now. Yeah, I think that's why this film is so brilliant because it does really kind of address that.

And also it's bigger than the court of public opinion. You know, like, as you said, it's about the system. And I know, Cecilia, you know, you mentioned you're having a hard time with Amex. I know the banks have been blaming you for what happened as well it's it's it's in it's sort of so deeply entrenched it's not just about people on social media um where are you at with that now in terms of with the banks and you know do you think this film will hopefully help to help your situation with them I think that I've taken the consequences a lot

of people said to me 2019 Oh, she just blamed the banks, she just wants to go free and like and I've taken the consequences. I'm bankrupt now here in the UK. So I have to destroy my credit in two countries. My issue is that most of my loans that I took up is in Norway. So and none of the banks in Norway are willing to go along with that bankruptcy here in the UK. So I'm still in a very limbo state where I don't know what's going to happen. And I'm trying my best to to to rectify it and just make them go along with it. But it is astonishing because it's over 200,000 pounds in high interest loans. It's no, there's no way

everyone wants to pay their debt. It's not that it's no there's no way everyone wants to pay their debt it's not that it's just like it's not it's not possible for me and i'm trying to ask them well how how do you see this is so much like david against goliath but goliath is the one winning every time because they can just say oh we're not going to do it and you're still liable here and yeah so to be very honest with you i'm trying my best but you don't need you shouldn't have to fight this much and have so many tears over this it's four years later now and i'm still fighting um yeah acas powers the world's best podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.

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And he was only in prison for five months. How did it feel when you found out he was being released after such a short period of time Penelope you want to take that one I was very very disappointed I mean like we fought so hard for such a long time and for that to be the end of the result and we still haven't faced the consequences towards what he did towards us and all the other victims around Europe um I mean like I was I was devastated to be honest i mean like this is another situation with corona to let him out earlier due to coved i mean it's and while he was in greece he made a civil lawsuit against us so um and he's saying he said in social media

that he won and that we owe him 80 000 euros each so. So he's still ongoing with the kind of libel against the victims and it's very damaging to us that there is no international arrest warrant for him because he's using that very actively in his innocence. Bernie, what can you tell us about your contact with Simon? Because we heard that voice note at the end and I'm guessing that came after you approached him have you had any contact with him since have you heard from his lawyers at all I mean what we

should clear up at this point is that we never intended for Simon to be in the film anyway I mean as far as we were concerned he was going to be in prison throughout production so it came as much of a surprise to us as anyone else when he got released after we'd already started the film so we I mean he had I'll hand it to Fliss really because he had her number because we'd contacted his lawyer because we always want to give people a right to respond when we're making the kind of allegations that we're making in this film but the film was never intended to be a platform for Simon Levive he's had quite enough of that so yeah it was Fliss that got the surprise goal yeah I woke up sort of the morning that he got out of prison with a message on my phone from him saying hey Felicity I want to speak to you about this Netflix thing and then we had a brief

conversation where he was saying I really want to do it and then we said well let's speak you know speak to your lawyers and so on um we made it quite clear that you know we were this was a film about the victims of his crimes but of course we would put those allegations to him and then it sort of became a backwards and forwards between legitimate lawyers that he had employed in Israel. And the conversations just sort of fizzled out. But there was one morning where I sort of woke up to about 25 WhatsApps from him. And obviously I'd get straight on the phone to Bernie. And he had sent just these online articles saying,

Simon Levive is being paid millions of dollars to take part in a new Netflix series about his life as a businessman and an entrepreneur so I sort of sent him a voice note back saying um hi Simon that sounds really interesting is that is that our film that you're talking about um and then sort of then he was like I want to do it I want to do it, I want to do it. And then, you know, another call with another lawyer. And then, yeah, just it sort of never happened. And then the final message we got was him telling us that he knows exactly what the film is about and that we'll hear from his lawyers.

So, haven't have you? We're actually making a podcast to sit alongside the film, which is called The Making of a Swindler. And within that, we've been sort of delving deeper into the backstory of Simon. You know, the different personas, the different identities that he's taken on. And, yeah, we've we've been making contact with people in Israel, but we haven't. Yeah, we haven't heard from him. So he he is still astonishingly on Instagram.

And on his account, as you've seen and said in the film, there are plenty of photographs of private jets and expensive cars and all sorts of indicators that he is continuing to live this sort of seven-star lifestyle, presumably funded by the other people and other victims um cecilia i guess i'll start with you how how does it make you feel knowing that he is is posting that kind of stuff and is maybe still doing this i think the police need to really look hard at themselves he was jailed ined in Greece. That was a year after I had

made my report. It was a year after a lot of others had made their reports. They're, to be very honest with you, I'm trying not to be very too harsh, but they're the ones to be blamed for all the new victims. Got approached some months ago by 10 people in Germany that had been defrauded by him, not by him directly, but through another mule. So so he's still out there and it's so discouraging for us that we are putting our lives on the line here economically emotionally like for everyone to see and yeah i think it's sometimes it's a little bit when you see that your heart sort of breaks because you know how it is to be a victim and you're just thinking who is paying for that and who is gonna pay for that emotionally later it's just it's really really heartbreaking to be honest to say and

let's talk about Eileen as well you know it's it's such a moment in the film when we see her selling his clothes literally as she's being interviewed selling another item. I know she wasn't able to make it to London this week, but Felicity and Bernie, how did she end up taking part in the film? Well, obviously, as we see in the film, she reached out to Prunella.

So Prunella was able to put us in contact with her, but initially she was not interested. She was adamant she was not taking part she'd wasted enough time on Simon she wanted to move on you know she'd been going through intensive therapy because Ellie was in a relationship with Simon for 18 months I mean she really thought they were in a very deep committed relationship so we kind of you know it's often the case with documentary filmmaking it's just kind of building up the trust and kind of just checking in every now and then to see how she's doing to see how she's feeling and she was you know the kind of constant message is good luck with your film I'm not taking part

but we never take no for an answer in documentary filmmaking that's not our job but you know it's softly softly and then obviously as we were building our relationships with Pernilla and Cecilia they were in touch with her because they were all kind of in touch you know not super regularly but checking in on each other as fellow victims and you know Pernilla and Cecilia were able to kind of feed back to Eileen about myself and Fliss and they were able to kind of I guess verify us and and and give their own kind of testimonials about how we were approaching the film, how we were treating them, what our intentions were for the film.

So then she kind of, you know, she became a little bit more open and then she would say, well, tell me a little bit more about it. And then she sent us her whole WhatsApp. And that is a whole other film, to be honest with you. But, you know, so we were reading that,

but there were so many gaps, and it was kind of like, I need to know what was happening here. So then it was kind of getting, you know, off the record, we're not saying that you have to tell us the story in the film, but can you just tell us exactly what was going on? Because all we're getting is the Simon side of things. And then I still remember the afternoon where I was on Zoom with her and she told me the full story about what

she did and I was like Because at this point we didn't know we knew that he'd been arrested in Greece but we had no idea what Eileen had done behind the scenes Yeah so we were like no that's fine you absolutely don't have to go on the record with that story and then obviously getting on the phone to Fliss

we were like we've got to get her! This is like the best possible ending to the film. So then it was again, just constantly building and building and building and then she was going to do it anonymously and they were like, well. And it was basically, you know, as the women have spoken about here, it's a lot of victims

of con. They feel such incredible shame and there was a big part of her that just didn't want to go on camera and say what had happened to her so it really was kind of reinforcing to her what a badass she is and this is a story that should be heard this is an empowering story this is a story about how women can take control back she doesn't need to go and scurry and hide in a dark corner this is the ultimate assignment do you know what i mean? So it's like, just take it. Take this global platform and tell your story. And now she's, unfortunately, she couldn't be here.

She's just started a new job and she's in quite intensive training. But she loved the film and, you know, her little hi, Simon at the end. I mean, come on. I mean, you couldn't write it. So, yeah, no, we were just so delighted. She was, there really was a cherry on the icing yeah and

Cecilia and Peniela how did it feel meeting you know someone else in Eileen and having that connection of someone who had gone through a similar experience and I suppose you know also the two of you you know have formed a really strong bond and a really strong friendship you know how was that experience for you well for me for me, I mean, like today, Cecilia is my absolute best friend. It's my absolute best friend. And I don't know how I would survive my life without her. We are each other's like little lifeline and we actually have so much fun. And this is quite interesting to see, especially when I got to know Eileen as well,

is that he really picked this like really genuinely good-hearted people who would be your best friend who would be your best girlfriend or everything that would do everything for the persons that they love so I mean like we really have a special bond and throughout this journey while we were in the roller coaster me and Eileen were in constant you know, you know, conversation. So I mean, we could have a laugh in the end of the night where she's sitting and texting Simon, like, oh, I hate these bitches. And we would just sit and laugh and just like have a glass of wine in the end of the night. I mean, it was absolutely a cracker. So no, I love her. She's, she's amazing human. Yeah, when I finally met Eileen, it was like, it was just, I must say, amazing.

Like when we had a dinner together, as I said, it was almost like you'd known each other for so long because you know exactly what you've gone through. And like, we're just very similar people. So I feel like they're friends for life now. And like we say, we can put an exact amount on the price of our friendship. We're very specific very uh finally i guess i just want to ask felicity you know what impact do you hope that this film has and are you hoping for justice for cecilia and panilla through the film and and through the podcast i suppose yeah I really hope that they you know have incredible amounts of support after people watch this um you know

Cecilia was really the one who started all of this going by coming out with her story in the first place you know it's been a sort of a relay race as it were she had the baton first she passed it to Penilla passed it to Eileen and then it gets passed to us. And, you know, had she not have told her story in the first place to VG, we wouldn't have heard about it. And, you know, that worked. That was what got him caught. And sort of we hope that by sort of exposing him all the more will hopefully, you know, make people who are doing this

kind of thing think twice because I think the biggest message that we want from the film isn't don't go on dating sites, don't trust anybody all men are awful it's that you just shouldn't underestimate the people that you wrong because at the end of the

day then your face is going to be all over Netflix but no I think yeah we we really hope that people support you guys and that you you know get all of the whoops and cheers because you definitely deserve it thank you and you too as well what an amazing documentary we want to thank you as well for telling our story it's so amazing all the people involved and we filmed it during covid so it wasn't so easy to say thank you at the end of the day but to everyone involved because it was freezing but it says thank you so much uh and we like i'm almost sorry that we died because we were so scared we had so much trust

issues but i don't think anyone yelled out so many times it's like listen it's like why are you doing this it's like we don't have an evil agenda behind this just trust us easy for you to say thank you uh we have time for some questions uh from the audience quickly um before we get into i should just flag that uh this conversation is going to be recorded for an episode of my podcast millennial love so bear that in mind uh that if before you ask a question it's gonna go on a podcast um so does anyone have any questions there there's a roving microphone if you do hello um just wanted to say you're both so strong for doing what you've done and my question, why didn't he get charged for the things that he did to you and the other victims? Why did he only go down for certain

things in Israel? I think that is a very good question for the police, to be honest. If you can ask that question to the police. Yeah, I would say that it's very bad police work. Very bad prosecutors and very lazy to be honest. But I will tell you you this that if it would be tax money he would get caught in a second yeah yeah thank you any more questions um you so bravely talk about admitting yourself to a psychiatric ward having experienced what you did what was it like coming out of that and facing reality again I mean that in itself is

a different kind of world and then coming back and then facing Netflix and doing everything else you're doing how are you looking after yourself at the moment that was back in 2018 luckily like in May 2018 so it's been years now but I think it's just I think it sounds so like with psychiatric ward I think it's like what a blessing that we have it and it felt safe it felt cold but it felt safe and just be able to sleep and and be taken care of and not feel that you've been taking care of others that you tried for so long um and luckily as we said a therapist is a very really good thing to have and just like as i said i've been taking so well care of here in the uk with the different charities that i was gotten in touch with when i reported so luckily and as i

said peer support i wish i had pretty a lot from from the get-go um you need to talk to others who's been in the same situation so i think we've been our yeah support throughout yeah support throughout the years but thank you all right it's uh it's he's been tough but um i think you have to be as i said you can't give up you just have to keep going uh it's either sink or swim and i think most people when you go through things like this you are swimming but maybe you have the support of the room thank you thank you so much

any more questions fair fucking play everybody well done brilliant documentary my question is for Felicity as the director you were clearly given so much information there were just whatsapps of years of relationships I mean judging by mine I can only imagine what was in there so how do you

begin to filter that how do you sort of find the story when there's so many victims so many different like each one could almost be their own documentary how do you begin to kind of funnel that into a coherent piece um hours and hours of work i mean it's um you know it's fascinating reading through somebody else's messages so you know that doesn't feel like work really um but no we fortunately someone else had already read yours so you were ready for it but um but yeah we basically I mean we had a whole team working with us transcribing every voice note you know logging every single photo that there was and then cross-referencing all of those you know within Eileen's messages Penilla's messages you know to

piece put together this sort of mega timeline of crossing over the relationships and so on um you know Bernie and I sort of worked together obviously on that um but we knew from the start you know we had a clear sense of we knew that we had a 90 minute that turned into nearly a two hour film to sort of make and that we wanted very much to keep, you know, within these women's stories. And then obviously, Eileen, we spoke to lots of other victims. And I think, you know, they didn't want to, they didn't want to speak. But, you know, that was also for our understanding of sort of how all of this works and also you know just hearing from you know multiple other women then you know we could then confidently also say to these women like look there are you know there are others and you know by you banding together and telling your story then you know hopefully you'll give them the

confidence to sort of speak out too but no it's your your forever you know kind hopefully you'll give them the confidence to sort of speak out too. But no, it's your, your forever, you know, kind of compressing, compressing, compressing. We obviously do these enormous, enormously long interviews where we've sort of really mapped out what we want the film to be. You sort of write a script and we'd also chosen which WhatsApps by that point we were going to sort of tell the story with rather than with an interview or with footage. But then you obviously then take all of that and get it into the edit. And the editors actually stood at the back, Julian. And, you know, you then spend we spent 30 weeks, the three of us together, then editing the film.

So it just takes time. But, you know, it's fascinating for us, definitely. It's definitely the most interesting and juicy archive I've ever had to go through. Thank you so much. Well done again. It's incredible. So we see at the end that he has a new girlfriend. And I know that you mentioned that any of these new victims basically is, you know, the police have to take some responsibility for those people. But do you feel at all any sort of need or desire to ever reach out to people that you might see pop up on his Instagram and warn them or do you feel like there's enough information out there that now if they did google him they

might be able to to find that or are you sort of waiting for the documentary to come out and then see what happens well I can say that of course yes we do and I think that means Cecilia's been on such a fighting mood so yes of course we have reached out even to his new girlfriend to try and say that we are here if you need help or whenever you are ready because it's very difficult as well like when you were there and basically brainwashed and right now and last time I tried to reach out to her she she wasn't accepting the reality and she was believing him but whenever she wants whenever she's ready i mean like we are here because i think it's very important to talk with people who has been through a similar trauma we're doing it very gently kind of when we reach

out uh so for example i wrote like we know that he's your boyfriend now but take one of his watches you know and you'll see that is fake I don't think she's done so we're trying kind of to like push but she's been just blocking us on difference

so it's been difficult and just lastly has he ever tried to reach out since to you I had a very juicy conversation with him it was very fun because i as i said i just blocked him so i never had the conversations at pernella or yeah eileen maybe i don't yeah so i just reached out because he had put out on social media that he had some meetings with his lawyers i just wrote to him i couldn't help myself that i understand why you have meetings with your lawyers and then he just wrote back to me

feel hoy, good luck you have criminal charges against you in Greece your lies made me a superstar and then he just sent me tons of the same articles that he sent to Felicity and I was like, I was just laughing back at him, so

he's insane hey guys um i just wanted to thank you guys so much for such a beautifully just a beautiful documentary um and i wanted to ask since this whole traumatical deal happened has it may have you had your guard up regarding going into dating and relationships moving forward or how difficult or easy has it been sort of going back into the dating field and you know being very wary or do you still have that optimism that you know like love is still gonna find you and like how difficult has that been sort of going back into the jungle so to speak I think that we have good periods and we had bad periods in life I mean like some days we can come and we can be like completely mistrusting everyone I normally say that sometimes when people treat

treat us very well we can become like very suspicious sometimes you can have good periods but also I mean like it's not a life to live to mistrust everyone you meet people sometimes can be like how come you didn't see that coming and you're like but I can't send a private detective to every new person I meet I promise you no one would want to meet me they would think I would be completely crazy so I think we are still struggling but we're trying and i mean like i think we are doing good we have each other's like support and we still we still enjoy that i said dating is still fun so i'm just like maybe maybe not jump on the private jet but i i will uh no i'm scared for them

uh but uh i like i i still as i said um before and i said again i don't i want to be better and not bitter i don't want to be one of those women that are just hating men and find all the faults this is not to do with men or like dating in general this is a very specific kind of narcissist and I will say we said psychopath so trying my best

not as easy all the time but yeah love is love any more questions hi ladies um great job on the film so just going off the last question would you say there were any red flags that you might i mean that there might have been a few who knows but um would you say that there were any red flags that you might have seen or things that you would advise other women to sort of look out for or questions or even just being able to do a quick Google search on somebody? Like, is there anything that you would advise?

Some actually good advices I got from my psychiatrist that I saw is actually something I say in the movies well I felt that instant connection like I felt I knew this person for 10 years and they say that that is a very big red flag for a typical narcissist and sociopath so when you get that instant crazy connection like we did you sort of sometimes maybe confuse it with the instant love or a friendship or whatever it can be but i would say that that is it is a very normal question we got and that is a very difficult difficult question that we have had to answer to be honest it's um as i said like i had never been loved love bound before and maybe doesn't do but i really felt when

i look back on it that was what he did and i feel like that's what people will say is a red flag but i'm a true romantic so i didn't see it at the time but of course all the grand gestures uh very very early on but at the point in time i think that he finds the people or especially i'm just talking for myself now i needed it at the time but there's nothing it's not a fault i would say either i've been trying to be very like to not pull myself down um so when it comes to red flags i would say you can always look back in hindsight and i think you will do yourself a disfavor when you go through something as bad as this uh you get enough punishment uh from all the other things that's been going on have not come off of it in easy way i mean like this guy

didn't do this alone i mean like he had an entire team around him so i i would say if he would have been alone he would have seen so many red flags but due to he had an entire team to confirm everything it it was really difficult to see that is all we've got time for I want to thank you all so much for coming and for your great questions I want to say a massive thank you to Felicity Bernie, Celia and Penilla for coming here tonight and bravely sharing your stories

Thank you so much Thank you That's it for today, thank you so much for listening If you're a new listener to this show you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. Keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon. Acast powers the world's best podcasts.

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