Hi, guys, and I're welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany, and holy dick, we have an episode for you today. Holy dick.
I mean it's better than Pickle Nicole. We've updated, Holy dick. Okay, let's roll with that.
Well, I mean we've been teasing this episode for like I mean it's literally three days. Yeah, I mean like maybe like a week, I guess. But we have the two women from Tinder Swindler joining us, Cecilia and Panilla, to share their story. I think it.
Feels like it's been teased for a while because we got the confirmation that the girls were going to do the interview with us, so they hadn't done an interview here like that before, and we were so excited, but we know better than ever the until something's actually been done, until something signed on the dotted line, anything would happen. So we're super excited by the prospect, but we didn't all want to rave too much about it until we got them and we did speak to them. It is today,
and we're so excited to bring you this chap. But we'll get into that in a hot second.
Laura you've been making some rounds of the neighborhood. Is that correct? Guys, Making friends as an adult is really really hard. Why do you hard? But why do you need another friend? Yeah? But I also need friends that have kids, and more so, my kids need friends. It's probably more the case. But you know, as you guys all are very aware if you've listened to the podcast. Literally over the last month, I've moved into a new neighborhood. I have new neighbors, and yes.
It generally happens when you move into a new neighbor We don't live on an acreage. And now I have your old neighbors. Mine new neighbors are your old neighbors.
Yeah. So BRIT's new neighbors is a lovely Russian couple. They're like in there, maybe sixties, seventies, I don't know. I can't guess. He's already popped over to fix some stuff for me. He's an absolute legend. He's like the sort of man. He's a sort of neighbor that you want when you need things done. Well, I didn't even know I needed it.
Okay, I went outside and there was one little thing that was broken, right, And I went outside just to look at it, and within two seconds he was there. He just popped up, Like what was that old TV show where you never see that you know, the neighbor.
Like Flanders, No, you know that really popular show.
This is all the youngins are not going to know. You know where he used to pop Tim the toll Man Taylor. I seriously felt like we were playing a game of charades, right, do.
You know Tim the tool Man Taylor?
Oh my god, you never watched it, and you never in like six years of the show, you never saw the neighbor's whole face. You only ever saw his eyes, but you always popped up.
When you needed him. Not our Russian neighbor, though you see all his face. Anyway, he fixed some stuff. Well, okay, so I went over to our neighbor's house. We took the kids. We took two bottles of wine, which I thought was maybe aggressive for four o'clock in the afternoon. I was like, do you go with one bottle or do you really like set in for an afternoon session with your neighbors, or do I take a cask? Because we took two bottles of wine a cheese plate, and
how did this invitation come about? Did like they put a little invite in your letter box, did you put it in theirs?
No?
So Matt met the neighbors on the street like when we first moved in, and to be fair, we live in a very it's a very community street, which is weird to me because I didn't think that people these days even spoke to their neighbors like and no, it's weird, Like I lived in an apartment building where hardly anyone knows each other prior and then we moved into the new house and the neighbors popped over with a bunch
of flowers. The ones across the street have asked us out for a lunch anyway, So there's like, guys, I love you, but I don't have time for this. There's a street WhatsApp group. No, it's amazing. There's literally a street WhatsApp group and everyone has kids. So it's kind of like, I really feel like I've found my people. And I was like, okay, we're going for lunch. So we rocked out with these two bottles of wine, sat down and it's just it's okay. I don't know if
I'm the only person. I'm sure i'm not, but it's just so weird as an adult knowing that you're meeting someone and being like, are we gonna be friends?
Like?
Is that what this is?
Like?
You're interviewing someone to be your friend? That's what we were doing. I hope I made the cut.
IF's if she's listening? How do she know who you are? And you need the podcast?
No idea? She had no idea. I was like in media, like, I've got a podcast, like and they were like, oh, yeah, we're not into culture and I was like, that's cool, I send you a link talk about relationships. Yeah. No, she had no idea, which is kind of nice.
The same age bracket kids are the same a little bit.
Older kids are like seven and ten. I'm giving way too much information now, but yes, it was just it was one of those moments where I felt like, as an adult, it's not that often where you get put into a situation where you actually are like, Okay, are we going to be friends? Am I making a new friend right now? And it's so hard.
Being an adult is hard, and making friends as an adult is hard, And you know, we talk about it on the podcast a lot, and we get a lot of questions from you guys. Saying, you know, I need to make new friends.
How do I do it?
Which is, you know, we've got these groups now, these meetup groups that you guys have created, and so many people have made insanely good friends from that, which I'm all about.
But you also just have to take a punt, right, Like, we had no idea whether we would connect, Like obviously we have kids, we live in the same street, that's all we knew about each other. And so you have to put yourself out there, you know, you invite people around you go and do things that are outside your comfort zone and maybe it'll click, maybe it won't clear. But it was just like this real moment where I was like, this is what adults do.
I think it's way easier to make friends when you have kids one hundred pcent because you have something to you have an excuse to meet up, and then if you click, it's great. You can say, oh, let's continue to meet up, and if you don't, you like, we're busy forever kids.
Sorry, Yeah, exactly.
So it's like a woman when I look at back at actually my best friend of my whole existence. We've been best friends since we were five years old, since kindergarten. You guys do the math. So I think I'm thirty five this year. Let me take that back. I'm still thirty four.
I love that. Like Daily Mail always reports that you're thirty and they say that I'm thirty seven, literally almost the same. I've read that you No, I read nine yesterday you were thirty one. I meant to send it to you. Yeah, you lost a few about fucking time.
So her and I've been best friends since we're five years old, and our parents obviously met because of us, like, you know, let's have a playdate with our two kids, and then because of us, they've been best friends their entire life as well. So it is definitely an intro into a friendship. So if you are looking for a new friendship and you don't have kids, kids, maybe that's your problem.
Go have some kids, Go make some friends. No, because when you have kids, all you then do is hang around and complain about your kids. It was a joke. Don't do it. I'm speaking of making friends though, Britt. I heard that you also made some friends this week. I made friend It was pretty funny. So I was on the Gold Coast.
It was like my last night on the Gold Coast and I was out with my sister and a couple of friends. We're having some dreams. Were in Burley and the Burly Pavilion, you know that really cool big I don't know, I'm not cool and I'm not from Queensland.
But it was all at the path.
Do you know what.
Yeah, it's like icebergs. It's like their version of our icebergs, I guess. Anyway, having a great time, having a few drinks, very sober, and this girl walks up to me and she's on a mission and she's with a friend and she comes up to me and she's obviously very intoxicated.
She's like, all right, I've been.
Looking at you across the room for a very long time and I just had to come up. I wasn't gonna do it, but I had to come up and say hello. And I love the podcast. And I was like, oh, thank you so much, like I absolutely love hearing that. She's like, honestly, I cannot tell you.
She was going on and on and I was my best compliment ever.
And I was like, this is brilliant. And then her friend goes, why do't you tell her what you wanted to tell? Her, and I was like, oh no. In my head, I thought, I was like what And she looked at her friend. You know, when your friend's throwing you under the bus. She looked at her friend. She's like, don't you dare And her friend's like, just tell her, just tell her, tell her what you were googling? And I was like, heng and what were we googling? And I was like tell me, and she was beside herself.
She's like, please don't like Sarah, please please, please don't do this to me. And I said just tell me, and she wouldn't tell me. So the friend pulls up Google shows it to me and it said is Brittany Hockley By. She showed me and the girl lily died and I absolutely lost it.
And she's like, Okay, secrets out. I'm by.
I was really hoping, She's like, I was really hoping there might be some article that said you're into women that I might have a chance. Anyway, I absolutely lost it. She's like, I just thought you just made me feel so comfortable all the time, and I want to make you feel comfortable too. She's like, you make me feel so like loved and comfortable and not alone. And I said, look, I'm never going to go down on you, but I will continue to make you feel comfortable on the podcast.
Can we just say, like, for every person who's ever come up and introduced themselves or said that they love the podcast, it is like, we're such losers. It is the best thing to happen to us. It makes me so happy, Alex have a little spring in my staff as I leave that meeting. But guys, we wanted to before we get into the interview today with Cecilia and Panilla, we wanted to give you, guys a bit of a setup or like understanding if you haven't watched The Tinder Swindler.
I mean, we did give you that homework, and we gave you plenty of notice, but we wanted to give you a bit of an idea about what happens the rundown on it, and then kind of what has progressed even since we've spoken to Cecilia and Panilla. We interviewed them last week, but there have been some developments in the story since the documentary came out and also since we interviewed them. Basically, for anybody, if you haven't seen The Tinder Swindler, it's a story about a man named
Simon Levive. It's not his real name. His real name is Shiman Hayut, and he is an Israeli conman who has spent time in prison, one for being a con artist, but also for forging passports. Now, the two women who were interviewing, Cecilia and Panilla, they are at the forefront of this documentary, The Tinder Swindler, and they tell their story about how they were swindled literally out of hundreds
and thousands of dollars because of Simon. So Simon feigned that he is the son of a diamond billionaire, a company called Led Diamonds. The whole thing was a setup. And when Brett first told me about this documentary, my initial response was like, how on earth, Like, how on earth could anyone believe such a fantastical light, Like how could you even pretend to be a billionaire unless you have the money to front the lifestyle to pretend to be a billionaire. But he had so many other women
on the go. He had so much money that he had taken from these women up to what they think is an estimated ten million dollars. So he was living the lifestyle of a billionaire, and he was telling Cecilia and Panilla that he was in so much danger, that some diamond deals had gone badly, that people were after him, and that he couldn't use his credit cards because he being tracked. And what he actually did is he got Cecilia, who is his girlfriend at the time, one of many girlfriends,
and she was completely unaware of this. He got her to open up her own credit cards, which he would then use as his credit cards because he was telling her that his were being tracked. Now, this is the start of such a truly harrowing story of how she was romantically conned. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to this story, and as the web of lies starts to unfold, you start to see how these different women are interconnected and where their stories actually crossover.
It really is a catfish story on steroids.
It's catfishing on a whole nother level. It's like, I didn't realize that the deception to this level could exist, that people could go to this much trouble. And when I say this much trouble, I mean you'd have to watch the documentary if you haven't watched it.
But one thing that I really wanted to talk about before we get in, and it is one thing that the women do speak about, Panilla and Cecilia, and they talk a lot about victim shaming and fall out of going public with their story and trying to make people aware of it. And they speak, you know, we spoke off camera as well off microphone, and there are a lot of people, a lot of victims that didn't want to put themselves out there because they were actually legitimately
scared of their life. There were death threats from Simon. He had threatened their family and their friends, He knew where they lived, he would make threatening phone calls. So I one hundred percent understand why people wouldn't want to put themselves in that position any further.
Yeah, And I think that that was something that wasn't communicated that clearly on the documentary, is that Cecilia and Panilla were legitimately afraid for their lives. And I guess it comes back to this idea of the person that they thought he was, this person who they had known for years or for months or however long. I think Cecilia's story was a little bit shorter. Panilla had was Simon's best friend for over a year. They didn't know
this man. The whole life that he had created was completely fabricated, so they didn't know what he was actually capable of, and he was threatening to hurt their family. He was threatening to kill them. He was telling them that, hey, he had like a hit out on their head. Can you imagine the amount of fear that you would be living in from that. I mean, Panilla had to get protection, she had to speak to policing, a witness, protection and things like that. It would be I can't.
Even imagine how scared you would be thinking that this person, especially because you've see the documentary. You see him switch the second that he realizes that he's caught out and it's done, you see a whole different person, a very angry, aggressive, gaslighting, threatening person. And once you realize that this person, you have no idea who you are, You don't know what they're capable of. And they're literally calling your house saying, I know where you live, I'm going to kill you.
As if you're not going to be petrified and what they said, and it really got to me.
It doesn't matter.
So they've received a lot of love and a lot of support around the world since coming out with their story. Conversely, they have received a lot of hate and as well, like a lot of people saying, you're so stupid, you deserve it. How could you give up your money? You barely know him. But at the end of the day, they are victims in this story, and victim shaming is
a real problem, and victim shaming has to stop. So you can have your opinion one hundred percent, but I implore you to keep an open mind and maybe opinion like you Laura, will slightly change after watching the documentary totally.
And I think the one thing that I've found was so viscerally obvious to me in interviewing Cecily and Panilla, And I've never experienced this in interviewing anyone before. We've always had such an easy rapport with people that we've interviewed. But I could feel their defensiveness. And the reason why I could feel their defensiveness is because they have been conditioned to hate media because they just don't know how
a story is going to spin. I mean, like, we know what that's like, we know what it's like to do in interview and then to see the article come out the next day, and all the things you said have been twisted in a way that isn't actually truthful to the storyline. And I feel so sorry for these women that they have not only experienced what they've experienced, but then they've had to go through the absolute circus that is the media, not just in Australia but throughout
the world. This docu series has had over ten million downloads. It's one of the biggest trending Netflix series in the world at the moment. And they're not people who have been media trained, and they've just been churned through. And so not only have they gone through this traumatic experience, but now they're having to deal with the judgment that follows from that. And I just can't even imagine what that would be like for them.
These women were with who they thought were their penguin, They were with someone that were moving in with they well they were they were in a relationship. Now the relationship wasn't real, but it was real to them.
They didn't know that. So of course, when their partner of a year has someone out with a hit on their head and says, right now, in this second, I need this.
Money or I'm dead. You're going to give them money. And I don't care what anyone says. If you're in that situation and your partner says it's life or death, you're going to give them money.
Yeah.
And I think that the other thing about this, like the last part that I think is really important to keep perspective on, is that this isn't just one man who was a conmn. This was an organized Ponzi scheme. There were so many people who were actually employed and involved in this scam. Which when it's an organized operation like this and there's so many levels to the deceit, it's actually a job. It's someone's job to set out
and do this. Simon is just doing his job, well, do you know, I mean, like you stand no chance. He's doing it the best. He's the best in the business. He's the best in the business. And if you were a victim to this, like, it's not one person who's deceived you, It is a full organization that has deceived you.
And I think when you had that perspective, it's much easier to understand how these women were taken down, and not only how they were taken down, about how it wasn't just ten thousand dollars how it was literally hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's plummeted these women into so much debt. There is a go fundme page for them which is helping them claw back some of the money.
But the other part that we talk about in this interview is that it's so much more than just money, and I think that that's one thing that we get
really hung up on. But the other side to this is the fact that these women had a sexual relationship with someone who they didn't know who he was, and they've given consent, but they've given consent to someone who isn't the person that they thought it was either, And it's just there's so many layers to this which are truly traumatic, and I think that, like I said, going back to the defensiveness that came through a little bit from Cecilia and Panilla, like I can't imagine what it
would be like going through this situation and then having to defend why it happened to you. At the same time, it has come out that he has swindled men as well in businesses around Europe. This has been going on for a very very long time, and no one was safe totally and if anything, We should be celebrating the bravery of these women coming out and sharing their story and in doing so, protecting so many other women from experiencing the same thing.
But Laura, I feel like we could talk about this forever. This whole episode could have just been you and me voicing our opinions on it. But we will get into that interview in just the hot second. We do have some other things to get to.
First, though we have accidentally unfiltered. But first, brit there is something that you wanted to talk about and that you are well kind of ready to talk about. I don't know how you want to approach this, and I don't know how you want to I want to move to a last guy, yea, I would like to set everything on fire and just leave the floor is lover?
No?
Yay, Guys, I do want to give you an update. If you've been following along, I mean, my life for a little while, if you're in the Facebook discussion group, if you read any other news articles, you'll see that there has been some speculation for a little while about my relationship with Jordan. I've kept very quiet about that for a multitude of reasons, but it is time to give you guys a little update. I don't really know where to start, so I'm just going to start.
Jordan and I.
He came back for a really short period over the summer. He doesn't live here, He lives overseas, and I think a lot of people forget that because I constantly get questions about why aren't you posting with Jordan and why an't there stories with Jordan. Firstly, Jordan does not live in Australia. He's here for like a total of seven weeks max a year throughout the year, and this year
was no different. He also is a very private person, so I've told you that before, and he did come on the podcast and there were times that, you know, he was really happy to be featured in instagrams and he would feature me at the end of the day. He's very very private. You only need to go on his Instagram to see that. He hates social media. He really hates it. So he came back for the summer and we did spend a really nice, quiet summer together.
We didn't post about each other. I mean we did.
If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see a couple of stories here and there. But we just spent a really nice time together. And then it was hard because there are a lot of quote unquote reports that we had broken up a long time ago, that some horrible things were written by people that were claiming to be reporters and they absolutely aren't, and that was really tough to know that we were here being together and just because we hadn't put an Instagram up, people were making
up stories. So that's one thing that we were battling.
And also I guess at that time, you guys were figuring out your shit. It wasn't like it was smooth, easy sailing, like you know, you were together, but you were sorting out what does moving forward look like when there is no clear path for how you're going to be together.
Yeah, we had some big life decisions that we were making, which was also why we were just keeping to ourselves because we didn't know what the future looked like for us. And yeah, so we did that and then you might have seen, probably about two weeks ago now someone you might have seen. I dropped him to the airport. He was going back for the next year of travel, and you know, we said goodbyes, but we actually said goodbye, We're good, I'm just gonna stop for a second because I'm not set.
Okay, you're allowed to be upset, honey. So you're doing great, doing great. I know how hard this is for you to talk about, and something that I wanted to like was something I wanted to kind of say it to everyone who's listening to this, because yeah, I'm kind, because you're great. I know how much we share of our lives with you guys, and like, you are so welcome into our lives and we love sharing it with you. We love that we have this community. We love that
you guys are so supportive of us. But it's really hard to see brit go through something that's been really really difficult over the last two weeks and for people to demand that she tell them where her relationship status is at, especially when Britt didn't know where her relationship
status was at. And I guess the thing with us is we share so much of our lives, but we don't share it necessarily in real time because we still have to figure out how the fuck we feel about things, you know, even like me, when I had my miscarriage, I shared that several weeks to several months afterwards, once i'd compartmentalized it. I'd worked through that junk by myself. I was able to set some boundaries up and I could formulate how I felt about it, so then I
could tell you how I felt about it. And I guess in this instance, like BRIT's breakup officially happened two weeks ago and she hasn't worked through how she feels about it yet. But because there has been so much reporting happening, we obviously want to share with you and tell you what's happening. We want you to have that
authenticity and transparency. But I think at the same time, Britt needs the space and the privacy to really recover before she's able to speak about something, because this is not like she's fucking heartbroken. Yeah, it's been a really tough little while for me and Laura. Laura said, He's right, like, we're very open with you. If there's something we're not talking.
About, it's for a reason, Like there is a reason we're deciding not to share something with you, and obviously the time will come where we will share it. But for me, I can't even explain how hard the last couple of weeks has been, Like I have not there's been days I didn't get out of bed. There's been days I couldn't stop crying. The girls would walk in and say hello, and I'd just start crying. And I think the reason is, I really really want to reiterate this.
There is not a story here. There is nothing that has happened. It is. It is literally the most beautiful and amicable breakup. It was just two people that, you know, we thought were each other's penguins. We loved each other. Nothing happened, no one's done the wrong thing. It's purely we're at a point of life where we couldn't physically be together. His career and he's in the prime of his career, like he has so so much to go and so many years left, and he's only going to do amazing things.
He can't be here.
His job every week around them is a different city, literally every week of the year, he's in a different city. My career is here and I'm doing a lot and I can't travel with him this year. So we just had to decide what the future looks like, and we decided to just be really supportive of each other and go our separate ways. And we're still very very close, Like we absolutely adore each other. We respect each other more than anything, and we're still friends.
Yeah, we still talk, but it is.
Over, and we had to make that really hard decision. And I think that it's almost harder. You almost, in a weird way, wish you could hate the person because I feel like it's easier to get over.
And I know that's a crazy thing and people probably will disagree with me. I would I rather hate him. I would rather be like, because then you forget him and you move on.
But when you love someone and it's purely it was just a distance thing and a you know, I want the best for you, you want the best of me, and that means not being together anymore. That makes it so much harder. But we know at the end of the day that this is right for us at this time.
I guess with that, like with distance, it makes it so hard to close the chapter. It makes it so hard to actually be accepting of like the finality of it all, because you're like, but the only thing stopping us from being great is this that we can't physically be together. And I think like the big part of this, and the part that's like so fucking hard, is that brit your career is so important to you, and you don't want to sacrifice your career to be in a relationship.
And that is what would have to happen if there was no meeting in the middle, because unfortunately, like you can't be a professional sportsperson and just decide where you're going to be. You've got to follow the tour around and that's not where your life is. No, and he was so supportive of each other that he would never ask me to give up my career, and I would never ask him. It's just one of those things, and this is where we are, and maybe who knows, in
a different lifetime it might have worked out. But for now we just have to accept that. I guess we thought were each other's penguins, like you guys followed along. I've been really open about that. He came on the podcast and said the same thing. We really truly believed that we found each other, and the hardest thing is to accept it. It's not.
But I will be okay, and maybe down the track we'll talk about it more. Cook for now, but for now, like I'm so fine, guys, like okay. She says that as she's crying no, no, it's like we just wanted to feel Look, we just wanted to feel you in because honestly, it's been pretty shitty actually the people that have been hassling me for information from just random people, some listeners, news reporters, And I understand people want to know, but like Lauria said at the very beginning, you just
got to give some people some space. People are real people and they're going through things in real time. So anyway, I am back on the market.
But also I think, like for anybody who's going through a breakup, or anybody who's been through a hard breakup, like there are so many feelings of disappointment. There's feelings of failure. There's feelings of like, I can't believe this is happening when it's not where you expect that your life is going to be. And there's feelings of having to realign your identity and figure out, well who am I again? Now that I'm on my own, it's.
A new chapter again, Like I'm now reassessing what I thought my future was, and I thought it was planned out. It's completely different now and I'm back to a place that I hadn't been in for a long time, and I'm relearning and I'm re trying to train my mind that it's okay that things change. And just because I thought something was going to be one way, it's okay that it's going another.
And one of the big things that we said from the very beginning of doing this podcast is that some of the best things in life can come out of the worst situation.
So run it right, ladies and gentlemen.
You thought last year was you watched it out? It's coming anyway, guys, enough of the sad stuff. It is time for our favorite part of every episode, which is accidentally unfiltered, and I'm going to go first. While brick collections, you need to equally collect yourself. Okay, here we go. One night, I went out and hit the piss pretty hard. I'm talking vodka, tequila, and wine, you name it. I did it. Anyway, my worst nimement care mine too. Now I have three glasses of wine and I've got to
hang over. Anyway, I had been checking this guy out all night and we ended up going home together. He was super sex and we had an amazing night. The next morning, I woke up in my bed and without a second thought, I let out the loudest, most rank fart I have ever done in my entire life. Not only that, it was like a grog fart, which we all I rolled over to find this guy I met the previous evening in my bed. You can imagine the
fucking horror. I just, for a sa second thought I was in the safety and comfort of my own home completely even forgot that I had gone home with him. Needless to say, he very shortly left and we never saw each other again. The absolute monstrosity of the sound woke him up from his sleep. So she, how do you forget that someone else is in your bed? Well, I think if you've had a real bender, you could. I once, O K. This is oh God, I faba shouldn't share this, But I once when you got a
guy whenever the guy at Uni we were dating. We'd been dating each other for quite a while, and he lived on campus at UNI, and I went back to his apartment, which I'd been done a hundred times, to his apartment and he had rearranged the apartment so his bed was on the other side of the room, like things were not where they usually were. So I don't
do this anymore, and highly don't recommend it. I obviously drank too much in my UNI days, but I would like not remember parts of the night before, Like I had drunk way too much, and I woke up in his bed but facing a different wall to where I would normally face, so you didn't know what you were So I had no fucking idea where I was, and literally for about thirty seconds, I thought I had gone home with somebody else from the UNI apartment building, and
so I was just laying in bed crying because I was too scared to roll over because I didn't want to see who it was. And he was like, what are you doing? Why are you crying? And then I was like, it's just you know. Needless to say, that was literally the last time I saw him. He dumped me after that, no doubt. Absolutely. He was like, are you serious, Like you don't remember coming back here? And I definitely it was disgusting.
I often wonder if it is a level of alcohol consumption or just how your body takes it, because I have friends like that. They're like completely like I don't remember a thing, and I always used to think they're making it up.
I thought that's an.
Excuse because I lacked out drunk.
I have never even in.
My most intoxicated I've been in my whole life, I've never forgotten something. I've never not known where I was.
So I don't know if.
There's like a way your body absorbs ourcohol or receives it.
And do you know what the weird thing for me is is like it's not like I'm passed out. I'm not talking like blackout, as though like sloppy, you know, falling over in the gutter and need someone to help you. I will like have full conversations. I will put myself to bed, I'll have a shower, I'll brush my teeth, but will not remember that part of the night. For me, it's white wine. But anyway, you learn your lessons in your youth, and we certainly shouldn't do them. All right, I'm moving on.
I kept ranting for weeks to my boyfriend about how I needed to clean out my wardrobe because the mess was fucking with me. I came home from work one day and to my surprise, my boyfriend had tied in my wardrobe.
What a keeper. I could put a ring on that.
Bless I was so happy that I got to avoid the shitty task later on, we're watching movie and he says to me, So, when I cleaned out your wardrobe, I found something in a pink handbag.
I was so unsure of what it could have.
Been, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had wanted to try anal with my ex and I thought, and I thought, I should buy some little butt trainers.
So I bought two.
The photos on the internet made them look like mini glue sticks. However, to my shock, when they arrived, there were two massive anal dildos exceeding the circumference of my arm.
I'm so embarrassed. How would you stick that in your arm but your butt? That's why she didn't.
I felt so shocked and embarrassed that he found these that I just panicked.
In a moment. I didn't know what to do.
All I could think was to lie and say that I don't know what was in the pink bag, and that the bag wasn't mine.
It wasn't mine. He asked me who the bag was, and in the heat of the moment, I said, my mother owned the pink bag. I convinced him that my.
My mother owned two enormous anal dildos to this day, I have never confessed we're still together.
He still thinks my mom has two big dildos. Are they called dildos if they're in it for your butt or are they called eight like butt plug?
I'm just don't you messenger, I am literally well, she thought this is the problem. She thought she ordered these two butt plugs. But she's like something when I miss on the internet. I don't know if you press the wrong button in the checkout, but she got two big dildos.
Feel like, if you're gonna list something like that, you really need a size scale, like have a penny or something next to it, so if people can see having the butt plug is She finished my.
Saying, I hope I'm lend to heaven, but the odds aren't looking great.
Sorry, Mom. Imagine if, like I mean, of all the people you.
Could have thrown onto the bus in that moment, surely I would have gone my old flatmate or something, the poor mother.
The poor Although the only thing worse than pretending they're your mum's butt plugs is actually finding your mum's steeldough. And that's the story for another accidentally unfiltered. It's a personal one.
Oh my please, Okay, I have far that's you're gonna have dusch Mum's permision for that one.
Let's get into the chat with Mila and Cecilia.
This has got to be one of the interviews I have been the most excited to do. And when I did a little slippery slide into the DMS of the girls from the Tinder Swindler Cecilia and Panila, I was just blown away that I got a response saying that you were actually interested in coming on and telling your story. Because here in Australia, Laura and myself and literally the rest of the country have just been so obsessed and so enthralled, and I think just so gobsmacked by your story.
So we are so excited to welcome both Cecilia and Panilla to Life on Cut. Ladies, thank you so much for joining us today.
Oh, thank you, thank you. We're very happy to be here.
It must be really difficult rehashing this conversation constantly and seeing how things have played out and the way that people talk about this story in media as well. But there's so much to this and we want to get into kind of where you guys are at now. Since the Netflix documentary has come out, but before we do, for anybody who's listening to this podcast and hasn't or doesn't know your full story yet, so Cilic, we wanted to start with yours because that's kind of where the
documentary starts with. Can you tell us a little bit about not just how you met Simon because obviously Tinder kind of gives that away, but what that first date was like for you and how things progressed really quickly.
Yeah, I was on tender as a lot of other single people some years back, and then yeah, matched up with them and decided to go very quickly for a coffee because I could see that he was traveling a lot around. Met him matter hotel there, had a coffee, and then you wants to spend more time with me and asked if I wanted to continue being with them when they were going on a business trip to Sofia, and then I met his entire team. That was the first date, so we went a little trip together.
So how long from literally when you swiped and matched until you met him for that coffee? Are we talking like a day?
An hour? It was the time frame?
Oh, it was a Saturday evening and then we met a Sunday morning, like ten thirty. So it was a very like weird timing for a date as well, Like so I wasn't expecting. I thought it was going to be a coffee and then I was going to continue writing my master thesis that so I brought my laptop and everything with me because I thought this would be one of those short dates, you know, not a private jet.
Not a private jet.
It wasn't just a little trip. It was a sensationally like no expenses sped, bougie trip. Where did you end up? And how did that process of when he said, hey, I'm going on this work trip, come with me. How did that all unfold?
It's so interesting when you get like caught into his world, you know. So we met the entire team and so much going on. There's so many people, you know, so like drivers and like three four cars and where are they going? And where are we going? So we're going to sell fridges for lunch. First we had lunch actually the entire team before we went to there. So we
were hanging out, all of us. So it was more like, Okay, you need to go home to get you to know your passport, you need to pack so driver can take you there. So it was really like it's organized chaos, and you could really see that Simon was the boss because everyone was.
Like talking to him regarding decisions and stuff like that.
And then we would drove out to the airport and then you were all waiting to board, you know, and it was like it's surreal, Like it was a military airport. So I've never been like at a small airport like that either.
And also like you ended up getting on a private jet and this was kind of your first day it was on a private jet, sitting down with Simon and getting to know him more. But I guess that that's one part of the documentary that I don't think we saw so much as this idea that it wasn't just a date with him. There were so many more people that were involved in this, and it was the huge and elaborate setup that kind of gave you that reinforcement that made you go, oh, well, this is legit, this
is safe. If there's so many other people that were involved in it at the time.
Yeah, I think that's why. And you could see the other there were other women there, like it was a female that was his private assistant. I was told, and you know that you're the baby's mother and a little dollar. So yes, I know a lot of people were very scared of me, and yes, I was thinking about it afterwards, but I think the safeness of seeing the people made me. It wasn't a trafficking schein, but I felt safe just seeing other people and especially the women.
And we see on the plane, we see a tiny little snippet where you lean in and you give Simon a kiss on the cheek. Obviously there's been more of a connection that they didn't have time to portray, but you obviously felt very very comfortable and very safe there and like there was something really deep there immediately. Did you feel like this intense connection with him straight away?
Yeah, He's very good at that, and like when we had kissed before, Like it's just a bit magl uft in a documentary because we did kiss before, and so like that little peck wasn't the first time. Like, and we were sitting right next to each other, and I'm a very like physical touch kind of girl when it comes to love language, and I like that and a lot of people don't, but I enjoy it, you know. So we did have an immediate connection. But this is what he's good at, you know, this is what he does.
He makes you feel that you have that special connection and that you're very special. When I was watching the podcast that has come out, like it's so nice to see other people friends as well. It was like a business partner of his dad, I was saying that, or like friends of his Like, he makes it feel very special when you're with.
Them, when everything in their life is so real and for you. And this is what I said to Laura when I told Laura to watch it. Anyone that has been a little bit skeptical, like how could these women fall for that when.
His whole life.
I mean immediately you're at a military airport, Like people don't just have access to that. You're at a military airport, you're on a private plane with all these people. There would be no part of the unit would ever think this can't be really is made up. There's no one in the world that could think that.
No.
But the thing is that there are so many people involved as well, I mean their entire team working against you. Maybe if you need one scammer or one francer, but here we had so many people involved that did an evil Trueman Show around you if you haven't seen the movie Trueman Show, but if you have your under stamina, mean it's like a theater that they do around you.
So you've come to learn since this whole experience that actually the people were not necessarily also being scammed or they weren't also like as in employed by Simon, but they were all involved in this. They were all part of this whole elaborate creation.
I think in different aspects to it. Because we know that, for example, some of the drivers didn't actually know that he wasn't Simon Vive, so he was involuntarily used because he's just been with him as Simon le Vibe. So when I asked about him, like, oh, something is such a great guy. It's one of my best clients and nicest clients, you know, but he didn't know.
I think this is so interesting and so important. And I know that with the documentary it was pretty obvious that there were some people who were involved, but I don't think I really fully understood when watching it the depths of what of how many people may have been involved, or the depths of the involvement. And I guess when
you know, you hear about these stories. When you hear about someone being romantically scammed, a lot of people's initial reaction is like, that would never happen to me, or how could you let that happen to yourself? But the more I watched your documentary and the more that your story unfolded, it made me realize that this could honestly
happen to anyone. Now, Cecilia, one question I did want to ask you, and it was in regards to something that happened kind of early on in your relationship with Simon where you checked Tinder and you could see it. Showed it in the documentary. You could see that he was overseas at the time. He was in another country to where he said he was going to be, but
he had also updated his Tinder profiles. Were there any red flags for you early on or was there anything that looking back you think I should have been more aware of this.
That is the main thing with the documentary that is not true. Now is the first time I get the question, because I thank you so much for letting me respond to that. I would never ever have been with someone and I would never have Tinder. I would never have checked Tinder if I was in a relationship with someone who does that. If you're a couple with someone you don't, I wouldn't have Tinder. You delete Tinder, you don't have it. So no, I did not check everyone were a couple.
That would be a huge red flag for me if I were in a relationship. I did it like when we just had our first dates and then I was really liking him, and you know how that is.
And you go in and check, you know, have they updated a picture which is very raw, of course, And then I saw that he had. And then that's when I was like, what's that? At the start he swept you up. You know.
Of course I could have been a red flag that after some days, but I just took it that I had just seen him. We can all do it and then, but it is what it is. Hindsight is a gift, as I say, a lot of the times, what you should have seen. But that is maybe the one thing with the documentary I'm like, oh god, no, it did not happen that way.
I'm so glad that you had the opportunity to clear that because obviously there'd be people watching that being like come on, read the scigns. But also so many women, and it's just people in general. Like I mean, when you love someone and when you believe them, there's no reason for you to doubt the things that they're saying. And also even in those instances when somebody is just I think it shows the level of empathy that somebody has.
It's not a bad quality to want to believe someone that you're in love with or.
Like infatuated kind of you know, I have to say, you know, he's a very magnetic person to be around.
And you feel really special. You tried to give him that level of trust because he was very trusting with you as well with his store and what he was going through. So it became this.
Very weird, vulnerable kind of relationship where both were opening up.
I have a question and Panila, I'm not sure if you ever met her as well, So either one of you. I have a question that I'm just so enthralled about, and I think the world is. And this is the woman that played the role of his ex partner, the mother to his child, that came on the plane, that
was always there and obviously he brought her in. I mean, for some women on a dating app, having a child and an ex relationship his baggage and they would have said no. But obviously he's used that as a way to get women to trust him because he's like, look, I'm a caring dad, I give all this money. Her role in this, she was correct. If I'm wrong, she actually was the next victim of his that helped put
him away the first time. How did she get to a point where she was on his team when she went from putting him in jail to then working for him, Because that, to me is one of the biggest mysteries of Tinderswinla.
Well, he did the same thing with me, so like when I caught him with his lies and called him out for being this France d and everything he had done, he tried to get me onto the scam as well.
No way people tried to get me on instead of like having me as his anemy. So I think that she maybe still have been in love with him or just was being very egocentric and we're just thinking of herself because like something in secilly I have said all the time, like if you lived through something like this, I would never want to put any person in our shoes, And for so much to take that step to really know how it is like, and to take part of
the scam, to try and hurt other people. I just like, I don't even know how this woman go to sleep at night.
And it's more that I had a conversation with her back in twenty nineteen because he reached out to me, and she was so upset that I had said that she was part of Simon's team, because she meant that she was just there for in London once, you know, for her daughter to meet her dad. And I can underst like that's the main thing for me. Why were you even there? And then she's come with in the podcast that she says, well, there were so many girls that week and when I met him, like, how can
I say to everyone? But how can you be there with a pure heart seeing all this woman who might be conned the same way you did, and be part of it? You know? You know you're being used for a reason. You know you're there for a reason. And she received so many gifts as well for her daughter that she knows. I know that I saw the gifts that she received. She knows they are from fraud. Can you imagine?
Okay, So what happens is he's found out and then he thinks, Okay, I have two options. They're either going to be my enemies or well, I can try and get them on my team. They're going to say yes, this game will be better, or they say no and they're still my enemy. So he just thought, I'll try one last time to get her to join the team before she goes announce me even further.
The thing is that her situation, I have to say, can you imagine, like we can judge her as much that I totally, but I can see it that I'm trying to have grace as well in this. Can you imagine she was with them and she was being scammed, She got pregned, she thought that she was in a
true relationship, they were living together in Finland. Then you get pregnant, and then you realize that he was never the person you thought, and that he's a scammer, and you're pregnant with this, so you are forever connected and it's a bit of maybe Stockholm syndrome, it might be different types. I'm not excusing her, but I am trying my best, you know, to give people the grace that a lot of people are not giving me and us in this.
But of course you should never have been there.
Cecilia for you, at what point, like I feel like the documentary or maybe I had missed it. How quickly did things evolve for you and your relationship? Like how quickly was it that you were moving in together and just progressing the relationship, because it seemed like there was so much love bombing going on from his.
Side incredibly, And I think, like the thing is that it was just so nice that he was that available, you know, that it was this morning. That's why I don't understand how he could do so many like at once, because it was like morning texts like mid they like whatever, when you calls, calls across the day, you know, evening. It was just it was like, yeah, love bombing to another level, you know, and with these voice notes of
appreciation and the future, you know. And the thing is that for me, my love life has always been that the guys I like don't like me, and the guys that like me I don't like. So it was the first time in a very very long time where I was like, oh my god, I really like this guy. Makes me feel so good. It's so much energy, and I have to say, like a lot of the flashinists like I didn't see it that way, Like I saw him as a very funny.
Caring guy.
I wasn't part of these kind of I got the private jet trip and then it was done with me.
You got your one jet, don't be agreed.
I got that one jet. Yeah.
Love bombing to another level which I haven't experienced before. And I am a person at falls very quickly, like if I found my match, I don't need to wait. And I think you saw that that I'm a very romantic person that is caring as well. You know.
So you had a perfect the perfect.
Victim experiencing the love bombing and then the I don't even know if you can describe it as toxicity, but like the absolute destruction that Simon caused in this relationship. Experiencing it and then watching it back in a Netflix documentary must have been an incredibly surreal experience for you. You mentioned something before, and I wanted to ask you. You mentioned that there was some things that happened in the documentary that were a little bit more for making
a movie. It wasn't exactly as it had played out. Was there anything else about your story that when you watch the doco back, you were like that's not how that happened, or you didn't feel that it best represented what actually happened in real life.
Yeah, I would say that's so much missed out. I had, for example, one person or one character that would just cut off the movie that had like a huge impact with me. And then also I think you had the part with the tinder. I think you reacted to that, and I reacted very strongly to where I traveled to Germany, because when I traveled to Germany, I tried to have him arrested, and that is the reason why I went.
So an hour before the flight is leaving, I'm getting a call from the police that says we're not going to be able to do their arrest now, and there I make the decision that it's better I go anyway, maybe they can sort it out by tomorrow. While I'm there, I'm still having this like high trust that they are
going to take him. So I spent two weeks with him, sitting with the police officers in like I don't think, like four or five countries, and just trying and working like full time just to try and have him arrested.
And why did I think they didn't want to arrest in Panila, Like do you think they didn't feel like it was as big of a case as you guys were telling them it was, or what do you think the pushback was.
There is a lot of reasons. I think I think he did it very smart. He separated all his cases in different type of countries to the EU in the European Union. And as the law works in the European Union is that for example, if Sweden makes the international arrestaurant for him, then all the other countries are allowed to bring their cases to that country. That means you have to find a prosecutor in one of these countries that want to touch these cases. Because it's quite complicated.
There is a lot like we normally say, if it would have been tax money, they would have find him five minutes ago. So it's not about they have noon where he was the entire time. Like they knew where he was, They knew that he was going to go on that plane, so the second he went on the plane,
they just they could do it. But the law is quite interesting sometimes and it is a question that means Cecilia asked so many times, and I think the entire world is us worried how come, he can still be out there.
I mean, he was also not just so smart on the way he did it that it was spread out across the EU, but also the debt was under somebody else's name. The debt in the case for you, Cecilia, the credit cards were in your name. What point was it when you when you had handed over these credit cards it had your name in it, and he was racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, What point was it where you started to realize, maybe this money is not going to come back in, maybe he
is not going to pay me or something. He's really wrong here.
It's just difficult because he was making transactions that didn't come in, but he was always having a reason or when you call the police, I'm not sorry. When you were calling the banks, kind of they were like confirming whatever he was saying. For example, he was always making very large transactions, like half a million pounds was necessarily to make.
That was kind of and then yeah.
So I was still like thinking that something would come in, and he was in stilling that fear and that pressure. So it's kind of like when you're in that situation. He was either are you going to stop or is he going to die?
Kind of.
So I see a lot of people are saying, like making the memes like, oh, if my boyfriend asked me for money, I would just let him die. And I was like, well, if you're in that situation, you really think your boyfriend's going to die if you don't help him, that's a very not a good relationship to be. And he's very cunning in that aspect.
You know.
It's the emotional and the manipulation that if you don't help something is going to go wrong, which you can laugh about, yes, my enemies and stuff, but that was true at the time. So I think my first thing was like when I got the check and I called the bank and they said they couldn't cash the check. But then I talked to them and I called Simon and he was and that's have you heard when he becomes really mad that called eldd diamonds like they will confirm.
And I was like, that would be very Do you understand how this guy is He's asking like that, if the bank is calling ld diamonds, they will confirm anyways, So and then I asked, like, why didn't it cash and they said, well, the sum is too large, like, we don't post so and as I saw the check is all good and they said, yes, the check is fine, there's nothing wrong with the check. So I was so scared for half an hour. The busse was kind of late in the game as well. After said this was
not at the start. It was when I was starting to become really desperate to get in money because that creditor is after me. So you had that extra pressure of him pressuring you. They're pressuring you trying to fix this, you know. So he saved himself for a couple more extra weeks with that because I was like.
Oh, the check is real.
And then I got to know the banks don't check if the check is genuine. When they get a check, they don't check if it's genuine. No, they don't do that. We think banks did that right now, Well.
I would have believed the bank as well. If the bank told me that no, the check's good, I would have believed that.
Yeah.
And it was the same with my transactions, like they confirmed like all my transactions to like no, no, no, everything looks good. It's just gonna take a few days. I'm like, so everything is okay. They're like, yeah, so that's when I get to debraud it even more because I trusted the bag. And when you come to them afterwards like, hey, this wasn't a correct VIRU transfer, and they're like, oh, we can see if they're real or not.
Like there are so many out there in the world that you're like, well, you sort of said.
So you can always look back and you think, Okay, the transfers never came in.
You know, why didn't you act sooner?
And I just have to say it comes with the coursive nature and the manipulation of the can.
Why are you still in it? Why are you still continuing?
You know?
But I guess also at that point, you still believe that the person is the person that they've been saying they are for so long. And ye, something that we spoke about before we started the interview, and I think, like, we can talk about money till the cows come home.
And I know that that's something that people prioritize and prize as being like the biggest thing that you've lost in this, But there is a bigger emotional conversation around having a relationship giving consent to someone who is completely not the person that they pretended to be and you experienced it on a friendship level, but Cecilia, you experienced
it in a relationship level. And like, when you think that there is a whole other aspect to this where you're having sex with someone who is literally not the person they said they are, how do you recover from that side of things?
When I was put into the psychiatric ward, I had to do different types of tests because I was scared, because you were thinking, if this guy can do this, he doesn't give a damn about you.
You know, he could give.
You everything on the planets. You know, you were super scared just for your own physical health. It's another level to it that I feel is like and just emotional corercion and the manipulation that they're doing to your mind regarding that they actually care about you being in reality, it's the total opposite. That you never believed that he could do this to you and then he was never that person.
Panilla, what was your time frame so when you originally went on a date romantically, but you didn't feel like there was anything there and you what seems like a really close friendship. It seems like you were a bit of a go to for him. For a long time. What was the timeframe there? How long were you guys friends?
And how long was it before he started to ask you for things?
So I first matched with him, I think it was February twenty eighteen, and then I met him up like two weeks later, so and then he didn't start defrauding me until end of November, and then I found out the truth, like end of January twenty nineteen. So I was with him or for a.
Year, Yeah, pretty long time.
I don't know if I can use the word grooming, but it's a very long manipulation. I guess in your case, Panilla.
It sort of was.
It sort of was like this slow grooming because he didn't ask you for anything for a long time. It's almost like he had you there as a backup, like I will love bomb these other women and if that all fails and I need something, I'll go to my inverted commas best friend.
Yeah, That's what I sort of felt like. And I actually sometimes I just have to laugh about things. I think, like sometimes I think he thought I was sitting on more money that I had.
You're like, haha, sucker.
Yeah, So like a little bit like because it sort of feels like it was like a carn on the car. And I don't know, because like I was traveling like everywhere, I did have cash and he did take my savings. But for me, it was just emotional things because like sometimes I could feel like I have cheating boyfriends before that have happened to me, and then it sort of
can think that they could lie to me. But like when you sit in there with your best friend that you trust with everything, and I genuinely thought he was my best friend in this whole wide world. It was just I did not see it coming. I wasn't prepared for that, and they have basically used such a long time to manipulate me.
What also happened is like, whilst Cecilia you were in the depths of giving over this money to him, whilst he was using your credit cards, was this the same time that Penela you were able to be try and you were actually with Simon. Did these things coincide at the same time.
Yeah, So I mean, like when Cecilia have this traumatic experience in Amsterdam where Peter the bodyguard comes in and they say they have a threat situation, this is an emergency, he needs to leave. He's coming to me to like spend the Easter with getting stock colms.
This is something that's been sitting with me for a long time that I want to know about. Anyone that hasn't seen it, I'm just going to quickly thill you in. But when the asking for the money starts, it's because his enemies are after him. It's because he's in grave danger.
And he actually sends.
You video footage and photos from a hospital with his bodyguard where he's injured. They're bleeding, they've been cut.
Did they actually do that to each other?
Did they actually cut each other so that they could go to the hospital so they could take a photo.
No, it actually happened.
I have seen him in a club and he is a cocky asshole, so I think, to be honest, they have been out partying and basically got it into a fight in the club. That's what I think honestly happened, because I talk.
To the producer and I think it happened like with me. It actually happened that night with me. And then he reused it because he wasn't in Copenhagen at the time, so like when he started using it and stuff, so it actually did happen. But I agree with Pranilla. Instead of being enemies, they were just being fucking cocky.
You think he was just that good that he would just see the situation. He's like, Oh cool, we've got into a fight. Let's what can we do with this, Let's turn this into something.
Yeah, it's so amazing how he did that on that night with me.
You know those boys those Yeah, baby, we're in a war hoping. I would never have.
Asked you for anything if it wasn't serious and all that shit and all the cards and stuff.
And I was like, yes, yes, this is real, this is real. I shouldn't laugh, and I'm not laughing.
It's a defense mechanism we have. We have to laugh sometimes at ourself because we have been brainwashed and we're not brainwashed it, We're not in it. And I think it is a defense mechanism, is Cilia using. Sometimes we have to do it. It's not that we don't take it serious, but we have to do that just to be able to be normal humans.
Sometimes as well, Panilla, when you were traveling with Simon, you were also traveling with Simon's girlfriend, which is a completely other woman, separate to Cecilia. Another woman who was involved in this and not involved in that. She was, you know, part of the scheme or part of the fraud,
but she maybe was even defrauded herself. Did you have more of a relationship or more of a friendship with this other woman with the Simon's other girlfriend since you had had this time traveling together, more than what we saw in the documentary.
Yeah, absolutely, And to be honest, like when everything went down, it was her that I care the most about because we had like a genuine friendship and we could be on the phone and texts and things.
Like that as well.
So no, I felt really really bad for her when I found out the truth and everything and the things I have to understand. Like I mean, for example, like I Mekonos. I was already there and I just said, why don't you come here? Like I am Meconos. So it's not like he's been taking me on these trips and stuff because he was my friend. I don't want to have my friends like pay out my whole toade and I did have my own money back then, so I didn't really need him to pay anything for me.
I guess I just have so much curiosity around this other woman who in your mind he was in a committed relationship, and whether or not she had also been scammed out of money at the same time, that.
Is something that she has to answer on. I mean, I know what she had told me, but I know she not went in there with a bad intention or nothing, like she's a sweet girl. But I think she had to answer that. To be honest, I don't want to answer on her behalf.
I think she's very properly brainwashed. Like I haven't had the same as her, but like it has gone some years. So I had some very contact with after everything came out, because I was like, you want to like reach out a hand to you, you know, but she's properly brainwashed. I think there are some more people that are falling even for there down than us.
But when he and this other fraud girl did towards me and her when we were in Rome, that is on a whole other level. That was a spectacle. I went to meet up with him and his girlfriend in Rome, and then he also had one of his assistants there. She and Simon did a charade. They basically went to do like hidden meetings. She did explain how she'd been working for the company for so many years, but now she only works with him. She could tell everything about
the company, she could tell everything about the family. She genuinely had a LinkedIn profile that said she worked for LED Diamonds, and then she was also connected with all these people. So in some way or another, she managed to get all these people and ELID Diamonds on her LinkedIn as well.
But I think it also goes to show how many
layers to this deception that there is. Going back to this victim blaming mentality, when people who were trapped and taken down by someone who is literally a professional comment it's something that can truly happen to anyone, And I really hope that like when somebody listens to this podcast, when they watch this documentary, when they see that you were both completely normal, wonderful women who have just been absolutely taken advantage of by someone who approached the relationships
that he created with you with intent to do harm.
Yeah, I think that is the most like hurtful part that someone generally have done this, so many people to have went them there just to destroy your your life. That is like the very low points in life when you realize that you also have to understand that this is their full time job. This is like a running company. They're very good at their job.
Did you guys, ever see him again after it unraveled and you had these fights? Was there every time that you came in contact with him again? Did you try to Did you ever want some form of closure? I know you obviously wanted your money back, but we've just spoken about there's so much more to this, so much more emotionally and soul crushing.
Did you want to see him? Did you want that closure?
Tried to like call me it. We did have a conversation in the end of the night, and that's when he tried to get me on board into the scams and I just refused to and I was just totally heartbroken. And then after I wouldn't agree on that, he started to threaten me. And then he just said, well, I gave you one option, and now I have already paid a price on your head so you can count your days to live, So thank you and bite basically, So,
I mean I was scared for my life. I mean like this man, I mean I have talked to other women that have been in contact with him, like he even threatens to kill their children to silence them.
They did not show that, did they.
No, there is a lot that you haven't seen. You have seen our stories and what happened to us, and it was too much to fit into the movie is still one hour fifty and there's a lot that haven't been unfold what happened and what he had done.
But I mean.
Sometimes I can get like when people are oh, you're the king Smer, I was like, this is not a normal human. I mean, this is a man that would threaten to kill children and you and women and basically destroys people life.
So no, because he drags in because like with the threat against me, and he said that we know you, we know your friends and family. So when you put in the Wii as well, you're wondering who else is out there? Like you get really really scared of it. So I reached out to him just one time in twenty twenty because I saw that he was you know, I had this lavish life and I hadn't had my closure because I just blocked him. I wasn't able to and you have that a bit, you know, he's never
going to listen to you. So I wrote to him and then he just said that my life made him a superstar, that he's doing great in Israel, and that I'm the fraud and good luck, and that I criminal charges against me in Greece. So this guy is just it's no talking to him, it's no point of asking him anything.
How do you even begin to recover or begin to like create safety for yourself when you are literally afraid for your life when something like this happens.
Well, I got to hid an identity from the police here in Sweden and then I basically left the country. I left my house. I was scared even to see my friends, my family. I mean I left the country and just like I was in here, I was like faking my Instagram where I was like changing dates and times and things because I was so scared.
And that's what he does to most of his victims. You know, they're not as strong as Pranilla in the end that she's actually doing going out and fighting the same with me, you know, like you get that threats and what do you do? Most people would never ever take that chance, but I think some of us are just like I just got that feeling like after being initially scared, that I can imagine that He's done this to a lot of people. I was thinking, and it stops now.
But this is how he silenced them, and he secily just decided like it's not gonna I mean, like I was scared, but my fighting spirit never left that he was not going to get away with this. But of course I didn't want him like to find me.
Because you don't know him anymore. What is he capable and his team? You know, because it's just not him? And I think that's so important. I realize could I never have done this by himself.
Cecilia, Like I know you were so instrumental in the start, in like breaking this story, bringing some justice to wanting like public to know who this person is. When you are so frightened for your life, when there is so much writing on this and knowing that he has access to your friends and to your family, where do you get that strength from?
Like?
What is it in you that makes you go this is not okay? I need to make this as public as possible. It seems like such an incredible step for someone to take who's in your position.
Yeah, I think I spent maybe a couple of weeks being fearful, you know, and just like what.
Should I do?
And then contacting police and they didn't care. I think it was more the feeling of not being taken seriously and knowing that he's still out there and that they're not going to do anything. No one wants to go to media with this type of story if they don't really have to.
It's almost like, oh, you chose it. And I was like, well, what do you do in this situation?
I wish I got justice from the system, that the police just did their job, but they wouldn't do it, So what do you do? And I was privileged enough of having a family that was really supporting. My mom was like my rock, and as long as you have some type of safety, then you can find the strength to do it.
I don't think what people understand some times, like with me and Cecilia have done I mean like we basically forced them to do this in English. So when they contact me about this Norwegian girl, I was like, this is not just one Norwegian girl. I mean like I've seen him spend millions, a million that maybe covers half a month of his spendings. I mean like, if he's a fraud and he have done this, that means they have an entire team. They have done so much and
we need to warn people. So I think what we wanted. We want to warn people who wanted to help people, so this doesn't happen to anyone else. It means Secilia just decided we don't care if we get drag because if we're going to cover our faces, it's not going to have the same impact. So let's just go there, hit us over with the bus, do whatever you want, but you have to also do the peace in English. If you don't do it in English, like I'm not even going to be there, I'm not gonna do it.
And I can just remember me as Sicilia in London, sitting in her room and just sitting an email in this to every news outlet we can find and just like, Hi, do you want to write about this? Can you share this as long as you show his face? Like everywhere, We've been.
Shocked by the response from journalists and stuff that are just eating up these guys what he's saying or what he's posting. And I'm just like, it's such a double stander there that I'm like, it's so weird.
I mean, we have seen the double standard in media, and we have seen what you both of you have received in the comment section on social media and people's commentary around your story. But I think for the most part, most people who have seen your story understand the bravery that it takes that you have shared this, and in doing so, you have protected so many other women to
falling victim to his fraud and his face. Simon's face is the most recognized face in the whole world at the moment because of this Netflix documentary.
Let me just show you one thing right now on that this is So we're in Bondi Beach in Australia, Sydney, Australia.
Oh god, I've.
Seen this, yes, So I was walking down the street today. I'm going to show you guys.
This poster is everywhere all over Sydney and over the East.
Okay, can you see it?
Yeah?
Yeah, it's so awesome, it's amazing.
It just says fuck the Tinder swindler.
I had my Australian friends sending it to me, so I was dying when I saw it. I was like, this is so funny. I love Bondai beachrona for.
Both of you. Cecilia Panilla like going through this experience and having your trust in someone completely crushed in the most just the most unbelievable way. How do you then, like, where are you guys at now in terms of like dating, your ability to trust people, even just making new friends. How has this impacted you in how you make and maintain your relationships.
I can see that, like we talked about before, you can have good periods and bad periods. I can find some times when I'm in a bad period can be if someone does something nice towards me, I can sometimes think that they have like an evil hidden agenda behind it. But in the good times, I mean, like me and Secily, we also have like so much fun together. I mean, like we can't mistrust an entire world, Like then the
world wouldn't be so nice to live in. I mean, like it's not we don't trust people, but maybe when we have bad periods.
She had just taken so much from us, you know, and when it comes to relationships and stuff like I don't want to live my life being bitter and not trusting people, because then my entire life would be ruined. So but of course I've had a huge effect, and we've gone through a lot in the years after, so it hasn't been easy forming those deep relationships, but I hope with this and finally, like closing a bit of a chapter that I don't need to speak like that you can actually properly heal and form.
Yeah, those relationships that you want to.
And I think we also don't want to be a victim our entire life. I mean, like we went through a trauma. We still have effects from the trauma and really bad things happen to but it doesn't say who we are as a person. I mean, you're best friends. We want to go out and just just have fun and laugh about things sometimes as well, so it's not like we sit home and cry every day. I mean we still have fun.
It's amazing. You absolutely can't let it define you, and I'm glad that you are not. And before I let you go, one last question that I think everyone wants to know. Are you both still on Tinder and or are you in love?
Have you met anyone?
I am not on any dating app, and I think I've been Tinder my entire life like four months. But I'm the famous Tinder woman, Okay.
I am the tender experts, So of course I'm still on Tinder. But I am not like using it. I haven't even had time to say the least, So I just think it's more fascinating just to see if some of the men that I've matched up with are recognizing me. I think that's even more funnier. And see how awkward they're writing high I.
See that you're the girl from the Tender Spindler.
Very sorry it happened to you.
Kinda should be sponsoring you, guys.
Actually, maybe we'll get them to sponsor this.
Airp you please.
Cecilia and Panilla, thank you so much for joining us with both incredible women that I'm just so grateful you came on here to tell your story today and I wish you nothing but the absolute best in life.
Oh, thank you so much.
Thank you for having us has such cool questions. It was a very different one, so it was really cool.
Guys. We would normally get into our suck and suite, but there were and I mentioned it in the beginning of this episode. There have been some developments since we actually spoke to Cecilia and Panilla. In regards to Simon, he's come out with his own statement around the Netflix series. Firstly, he has said that the Netflix series is completely fabricated that he is not a fraud star. And I just think, like anybody who's watched that Netflix series, anyone who's spoken
to Sicilia and Panilla, are going to believe their story. So, Bro, you've been in jail twice. You're going in jail twice, like literally, you have been criminally charged for this. Simon ended up serving five months of his almost two year sentence, which was off the back of him forging part Sports. So that happened, and that was all linked in to
the time that Cecilia and Panilla were being scammed. He hasn't been held to accountability yet for the amount of money that he scammed out of these women, and I think that that is one of the huge and biggest tragedies of this But something that I wanted to talk about quickly before we summed up everything is this idea about Netflix and with this huge mass consumption of the girl's story, of the women's story who have been conned,
is the infamacy that comes with the Netflix series. So Simon's face and Simon's name is one of the most well known and easily recognizable face in the world at the moment, but he's also started to become and be able to earn an income off this. He has just signed a manager in the United States. He wants to go to Hollywood. He wants to go to Hollywood. He wants to start a dating show. He also is now to why.
I mean, I'm sorry, I would that is the last show in history.
I'd be going on.
Imagine if you took dating advice from a con man like but people going, this is the this is the crazy thing.
I have no doubt it. So cooked.
Success is going to come to him in some fucked up roundabout way because we're obsessed with these people, because he's a horrible human that was sending death threats to people, and we're going to celebrate him and give him a platform.
And that's the thing that I think is just so toxic. And I know that that's one of the points of conversation that really upset Cecilia and Panilla. We did ask them a little bit actually got edited out of the final interview because it was a bit emotional and heated. I asked Cecilia how she felt about the fact that Simon is still on TikTok and has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, on TikTok. His Instagram's been taken down by Instagram, which is a huge step because usually Instagram
never deletes anything. Tinder also and he's been deleted and blocked from opening up a Tinder, but he still has TikTok, and he also is now charging for cameos. And it must be just so infuriating on so many levels. Firstly, the fact that he is a con man. He's still perpetuating even to the media, that he's living this high life. And Cecilia and Pane don't believe that he's still a
millionaire or a billionaire. Sicilian Panilla actually think that even the way he's perpetuating himself to media now is a scam. So the media have been scammed by his lives as well, because we're all buying into the fact that he's still living this luxurious and luscious high life. Whereas really, where would he be getting his income from? And that was
the question that Cecily opposed. But also how can somebody who is literally a criminal, who is infamous for doing so much hurt and so much damage to these women be able to earn an income through a company and a platform like cameo and I just think that for Cameo to platform him, for any social media to be able to say yep, come here, and it glorifies what he's done. It kind of says, look what you can get away with, Look what you can achieve if you
do this to other people. I just think it's truly unconscionable.
Well, he also wants to start and like, I mean, look, this is going to be some direct competition. He also wants to start a dating podcast as well, like a relationship podcast. It's beyond me what advice people going to get from him, because there's no part of him that is there's nothing that is true.
But I mean it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant how or what he does. The fact is that he should not be able to earn an income or become famous because of what he's done to these women. And truly, I think that that is the one dark side of Netflix documentaries is that people who are criminals, who are deeply flawed, almost become immortalized because we're obsessed with the story.
Well, the thing I don't understand too, is so he's just come out yesterday or the day before and said I'm not the Tindersminlller. I was just a single person that was trying to date. I didn't do any of the above. This is literally what he's saying. But when he made his reappearance on Instagram for the first time in TikTok after the documentary, he was posting photos with the hashtag you paid for this, so piculaining simon, what's
it going to be. You're either going to claim and gloat that you did this hashtag you paid for this, or you're going to say it's not meaning you're going to deny it. But I think he's just completely playing the media like he's played every single person. It's horrible that he's making money and anyone quickly that doesn't know
what Cameo is. It's just an account where people pay for personalized videos of famous people essentially, and he's he's charging around five hundred dollars for a personal video and up to fifteen hundred dollars for business videos. This is literally just of him recording himself for a couple of minutes and sending it to someone they're paying for it. So it's absolutely despicable. And one thing I did find.
Really lobby Cameo to get him off the side, totally sus me off. But this is the thing.
There is no company or person in the world right now that doesn't know who he is and what he has done. So for a company to turn a blind eye to that and let him do what he's doing and make money from it is very, very disappointed in my eyes.
I mean, it's one thing, isn't it, Like, yes, he has these platforms, is anybody buying Is anybody buying the cameos? We don't know one hundred percent they are, but they would be.
Yeah.
Last thing I wanted to add was just for anyone that is still thinking that these women are crazy and silly women to have done that. The Guardian reported that last year twenty twenty one, one year alone, romantic cons added up to one billion dollars one billion dollars. So it's not just these women that are being scammed. This is a real, real problem. Twenty twenty one, twelve months,
a billion dollars just in romantic scam. So just think about that next time you're trying to judge someone, especially these women.
But also on that. It just shows the depth of empathy that some people have and also how powerful wanting to be loved. Is how powerful wanting to be in a relationship, wanting someone to care about you and putting all of your love and energy and belief in somebody like that is powerful shit. And I don't think that we can exactly like you said earlier with the whole grace tame thing like blaming somebody for being the victim of someone else's cruelty is truly truly awful.
Well, at the end of the day, people giving them a hard time for literally being trusting people and believing that they were in a relationship. But anyway, we hope you guys loved that. We hope you learned something from listening to these women. I know we absolutely did. There were definitely some eye opening moments, and I'm really grateful they came on the pod. Let's finish up the episode with our highlight now Lowlan, our suck, and our sweet
of the week. I'm going to go first. My stuck broke out with Jordan Mabing on sweet Lolocano cute my sweet.
I'm like, and everything is on fire and I want to put my life in the bin. But yay, let's talk about my sweet now. My coffee was nice. Fuck everything, my sweet fuck the world.
Ah no, my sweet would be. It's been a really tough couple of weeks, so I'm really gonna have to dig deep here, Lauriel.
Yeah, I mean, you live in a beautiful new apartment. You've got an amazing steak, my sweet. I have a great co host. Yeah, all of them, both, my sweet is. I had so much satisfaction from building this new mansion kennel for Dalilah. I really went above and beyond to build her a little home. And it was really hard to build this kennel on my own from physically like trying to hold up these panels, like I didn't have enough hands trying to hold up these panels, use screwdrivers,
put things in here and there. It kept falling over. It was very difficult.
I didn't want to give up because I was like, I'm going to do this, like I'm going to be this independent woman, don't need no man, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And I nailed it. And the satisfaction I was like, is it? I was like, is this sad?
How much satisfaction I have?
Absolutely not. I think anybody listening to this who's like ever assembled a flat pack piece of furniture all by themselves, without the help of a man. It was like at the end they were like, yeah, I've got there. You got hey, I can do this all on my own, so I can completely relate to that. What's yours. My suck for the week is that we didn't pay our gas bill, and yesterday our gas was to stand off, which meant I've had two cold showers now and my
children everything had to be miracles. Just don't turn my electricity off. Can I just add that, I'm pretty sure we had this discussion lots of times. I did tell you what was going to happen.
We did.
I also thought that they gave you a bit longer, like it's only been a couple of weeks.
You how your month, how much free gas you want? I mean you still have to pay for it, you just pay for it retrospectively. But yeah, energy is streler. They were fucking on it. Literally from the second we moved in.
They were like, you don't live here, pay your gas, pay your new gas. Fuck you turn your gas so I got cameras in the house. Just a bit of a buffer would have been nice. Do you know what like a month? Adulting is so hard.
Like people underestimate how hard it is to be an adult and when you.
Literally every person listening to this podcast is doing it though, But that's what I mean. But like it's the things that you think about.
And this is what I really realized, since you know, I've been on my own for so long in terms of living on my own, doing life, even with Jordan for the last year, like God, that was still my own the whole time, like he didn't live in another country. But I never really realized how much I relied on like my dad or the father thing or your parents for the things that you don't realize, like moving home. You don't just pick your furniture up and put it in.
You've got to cancel everything, all the electricity, all the gas, all the internet. Then you've got to call up and then you've got to redirect it, and then you've got to make sure it's on in time. It's like you have to do so much stuff, and I'm like, just let me live, like I've got my bed, just let me live here.
It's the admin. It's the life admin. Look, I mean, you still can't do I weaponized some confidence. I thought Matt was going to do it because I found that shit too hard and he didn't do it, and then no one did it, and so now we have no gas, which we have to work out today. But anyway, and my sweet for the week is just I like, Lolo is almost walking and she had kind of I'm out the other side of a really tricky phase. I don't know if I really spoke about it, but she went
through this phase she just sucked for a while. Man, it was so hard. She just went through this phase of screaming about everything, and I just felt so beat down. And I know that everyone sees her on Instagram and says like she's the happiest baby. She truly wasn't. For a little while there, she was happy or she was screaming. She only had two settings, and it was like pretty soul crushing zero to one hundred real quick. Yeah, it was like she was smiling or she was screaming, and
that was it. There was no chill, there was no one between. And I just think maybe she was having a growth spurt. There was some weird changes, baby leaps or something happening. And now we're on the other side and I'm really enjoying being around her again. And I know that sounds horrible, but there was like a period there where I was like, wow, well I'm gonna have to get up and do this parenting thing today and I just don't have it in me.
But of course you're not going to enjoy And it's not that it's your child. It's not that you don't enjoy your child. And of course you're not going to enjoy being around and we'll just say something. Of course you're not going to enjoy being around something that incessantly screaming.
At the top of their lung. You can call her a child, which I know, I add something I know, but like I mean, I mean anything. It's just say it was like a dog howling for six hours. You don't want to be around a child that is screaming.
And it's not just that it was screaming for like an hour or half an hour, like she was going through a really hard time. It would be hours on end. So I don't think you need to feel bad for saying I need to step out for a bit of fresh air.
Yeah, And I think every mom goes through it, like these periods where you think I'm loving my time with my kids, like my kids are incredible, and then you have times where you're like, this is really challenging and I'm not as much as I love my children, I'm not enjoying their time as much as what I normally would because they are going through a difficult leap. Emotions are bigger than their bodies. Things are just a bit more challenging, and you kind of work through it. So,
I mean, I knew it was a phase. I knew we would get through to the other side, but the phase was really hard, and I was feeling really really just emotionally beat down, and the unrelentingness of parenting sometimes just creeps up on you.
Yeah, And there were times that Laura would walk in and I was like, how are you and she would just cry to you. They were just well, we just both sit there and crying. We're like, this is so fucking funny in a not funny way, like we shouldn't be laughing, but we would cry laugh because we were
just both at like our wits end. But can I just say saying, Britt, I know that this has been, in a lot of ways a hard episode for you, and I know that you aren't ready to talk about the full scope of things or like, you know, just even it doesn't come easily to talk about heartbreak when you're actually going through the heartbreak.
I'm so fucking proud of you for how you had big things happening in your life and you have still showed up to the podcast. You have still put on you know, put on some makeup, fucking pulled on your pants and like.
Sometimes there was no pants or no makeup, but just.
Cracked on with it, you know, And as much as like, I know how hard that was, and I don't think you give yourself enough credit for just how how well you have managed to put things together when everything else has been going to shit. And I'm super proud of you.
Thank you, love, because I do not feel like I've had it together.
But here we are fake news. I pretended to be Okay, I am at night aar so yeah, she's an actress. Anyway, Guys, if you have loved the episode, please jump on leave us review. If you are a scullywag and you've been listening for so long and haven't left one yet, where
you at? If you have an accidentally unfiltered story for us, or you want to join the podcast group, we have our Instagram which is Life Uncut Podcast, and we also have the Facebook community, so if you're an adult and you want to make adult friends, you can jump on there. It's called Life Uncut Discussion Group on Facebook and that is it from us Sell you mum tea, dad tea, dog tea friends and share the love because we love that I just had a testy pop