A Kentucky woman named McKayla reveals that she's scammed by someone who claimed to be the Netflix series' star and even divorced her husband because of the impostor.
- Aug 18, 2023
AceShowbiz - "Stranger Things" fan fell victim to online catfish. A Kentucky woman named McKayla revealed that she was scammed by someone who claimed to be the Netflix series' star Dacre Montgomery and even divorced her husband because of the impostor.
The single mom revealed that she met the person in an online forum for artists over a year ago. After communicating for a while, McKayla fell in love with him and eventually decided to divorce her husband to pursue the romance.
"This guy messaged me he was under a different username, me and him get to kind of talking and then he admits that he is an actor," McKayla revealed in a May YouTube video. "He tells me that he's Dacre Montgomery-that's like one of my favorite actors-and me and him just really hit it off. But of course I'm suspicious from the get-go until he starts doing things that make me believe that he is who he is."
She claimed that they bonded over their frustrations with their respective partners. "That's one thing that we actually bonded over," McKayla shared. "He was venting to me after a few months about his partner saying she's very controlling of him, he doesn't get to do the things he wants to do. And I kind of empathize with that because my ex-husband was that way."
She added that they confessed feelings for each other after a year. The fake Dacre then asked McKayla to "keep it quiet because I'm still with Liv," referring to the actor's girlfriend Liv Pollock.
McKayla noted that she was initially skeptical that he was really Dacre. However, she was convinced when he shared poems written in a similar style to the actor's poetry collection DKMH: Poems published in 2020. The impostor also gave her spoiler about Dacre's surprise cameo in "Stranger Things" season 4 episode "Dear Billy".
Their relationship went stronger to the point McKayla sent the person over $10,000 throughout their relationship. "Dacre" told her that Liv controlled their bank accounts, making it difficult to withdraw money.
At one point, the fake Dacre forced McKayla to choose between him and her husband. "I said, 'Look there's no competition, you treat me better,' " she said of her decision. "So I told my, you know, I told my ex-husband, '... It's not working out, you're not letting me be me, you're not letting me be free.' I said, 'I think you need to leave,' so he left. Within two months he was gone."
In the video, McKayla explained how she could fall in love with someone she's never met before. "Love makes you do crazy stupid irrational things, I promise," she reasoned. "And trauma does one heck of a thing to a person. If you're someone like me, you're afraid of abandonment and you're a real big people pleaser and you're very co-dependent. These scammers, they just kind of come in and they leech off that."
