Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Most Insane Catfish I've Ever Heard Of - The Gemma Barker story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

Gemma Barker catfished her 2 best friends by pretending to be 3 boys.

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Gemma starts going to college and she starts to really miss hanging out with her two friends who are still back in secondary school. So then Gemma comes up with one of the wildest plans I've ever come across to be closer to her friends. See, Gemma knows her friend Beatrice really wants a boyfriend and she knows exactly the kind of boys Beatrice is into. So Gemma decides to catfish her and put on a disguise and low key become the perfect boy. for Beatrice. So first she creates a Facebook profile for this fake guy and she names him Aaron and she adds a profile picture of fake Aaron and she adds a bunch of friends and makes the page look legit. Then posing as fake Aaron, Gemma adds Beatrice on Facebook and

sends her a message. Sometime later Beatrice messages back like oh hi, who are you? And they start chatting and soon enough they're chatting every day and they're really hitting it off. But after a couple of months of this Beatrice really wants to meet Aaron in person for the first time. So now Jimma is in a predicament. She knows if Beatrice doesn't get to meet fake Aaron in person at some point, then she's going to eventually realize he isn't a real person and she's going to stop talking to him. So what does Jimma do? She dresses up and disguises herself as a boy and pretends to be fake Aaron. She gets some baggy clothes and a be Beanie and she puts men's cologne all over herself and she adjusts the way she talks and the way she walks,

everything. And now that she looks like a boy, she goes to meet Beatrice in person. So they meet up. And somehow, Beatrice has no idea this is her old friend, Gemma, catfishing her. So then Beatrice and fake Aaron, they meet up more and more. And she really starts to like him. And of course, Beatrice is telling her best friend Jess all about this new guy, Aaron, she's been hanging out with. And so now Jess wants to meet him. And so Gemma dressed as fake Aaron is like, all right, let's meet. And so the three of them, Beatrice Jess and Gemma dressed as fake Aaron, they start hanging out a lot.

And neither Beatrice nor Jess realize they're being catfished by their own friend. But then at some point, fake Aaron asks Beatrice to be his official girlfriend. And boom, they become official official. The day after they become official, Gemma takes it even further. She dresses up as fake Aaron and she tells Jess that he's got this cool friend that she might like. His name's Luke. And fake Aaron wants to hook Jess and Luke up.

And so soon enough, Jess starts messaging with this guy Luke. And she immediately thinks Luke is foin, but here's the thing about Luke. You know how fake Aaron is really just Gemma dressed as a boy? is also just Gemma dressed as a boy. So the fake Luke is chatting back and forth with Jess and pretty soon they agree to meet up. And they're hanging out and Jess also has no idea she too is being catfished by Gemma again.

And if that isn't bad enough, one day Jess and Fake Luke are hanging out and they're making out because I guess they make out. But then Fake Luke gets pushy and he doesn't stop when Jess asks him to, and I guess this happens a few times, so eventually they break up. Good for her.

Oh, but this breakup is not gonna stop Gemma. She just goes and creates another alter ego to date Jess, and she dresses up like a slightly different type of boy, and she calls herself Connor. So now, Gemma is pretending to be this fake Connor, and she makes a fake Facebook page for him, and she messages Jess like, Luke told me what he did, and I just want to say,

it's really not cool, and you didn't deserve that. And Jess is like, oh, he's such a nice bloke, isn't it? So then Jess and fake Connor start chatting back and forth all the time, texting all the time, and they start hanging out in person. And of course, Jess has no idea fake Connor is Gemma and she starts to really fall hard for him. Oh, but it gets worse. Meanwhile, Beatrice is still hanging out with fake Aaron. And one night, I guess they decide they're gonna smash for the first.

first time? And of course, beforehand, fake Aaron insists on keeping the lights off while keeping all of his clothes on the whole time, including his hat. He didn't want to take that off. But yeah, regardless, I guess they smash. And I don't want to know how. But here's where Jemma's insane catfishing scheme starts to fall apart. At some point, fake Connor goes over to Jess's house. And I guess they start hooking up and fake Connor tries to go further and Jess says no. But fake Connor is being very aggressive and I guess he ends up essaying her. But then he's on her bed and eventually he falls asleep. I guess he didn't mean to. And while he's sleeping, his hat is kind of falling off. And so Jess finally sees him without the hat and she realizes that this person in her bed who just essayed her

isn't fake Connor. However, and try and stay with me now, she doesn't realize it's Gemma dressed as a boy. She thinks fake Connor is fake Aaron. She thinks fake Aaron is at her house pretending to be fake Connor. And she's like, oh, Bullocks, why is Aaron in my bed wearing a hat and pretending to be someone else? Now remember, Aaron is supposed to be her best friend Beatrice's boyfriend. So she thinks her best friend's boyfriend just essayed her. So she kicks him out and she tries to decide what to do. Now eventually, Jess decides to come clean and she goes to Beatrice and she's like, Hey, I think your boyfriend Aaron was catfishing me pretending to be Connor and then he essayed me. And so Jess goes and reports fake Aaron to the police.

So now police are looking for fake Aaron and they end up finding him at Beatrice's house. And they question him and of course he denies everything. Now, in theory, this would be a great moment for Jimma to come. come clean and say, ha ha, I was catfishing everyone. I was, I was Aaron and Connor the whole time. But that's not what she does. Instead, later, Gemma calls the police and she pretends to be fake Aaron, and she's like, Gemma can back up my story. So then Gemma posts on Facebook and she pretends to be fake Luke, and she has fake Luke confess on Facebook to being the one who actually essayed just that night at her house. She's like, everyone's blaming Aaron, but she's,

it was actually me. And if that isn't crazy enough, Gemma then somehow breaks her own jaw, and she contacts police and she tells them that fake Luke attacked her. What the fuck is going on? Anyway, I'm not sure if police buy this story because they're still looking at fake Aaron as a suspect. So police have Beatrice tell fake Aaron to come over to her house, and when fake Aaron shows up, bam, they arrest him. But since fake Aaron isn't a real person, this is a real person, this means police have actually arrested Gemma in disguise. So at the police station, Gemma is freaking out. How the hell is she going to get out of this? But then police decide to do a strip search on her, and Gemma refuses to remove her beanie. And police are like, oh, piss off. And they try and pull

the beanie off of her. And when they do, Gemma's hair falls down around her face and the officers look at her like, oh bloody hell, you're a girl. So the truth finally comes out. And everyone is like, how the hell did you pull this off? So ultimately, they charged Gemma with SA and fraud, and she sentenced to 30 months in prison for catfishing her two friends. And I don't have a mugshot of Gemma, but here's a picture of her in real life.