US fourth seed Jessica Pegula outclassed Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko 6-1, 6-3 to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the...

A woman was scammed into thinking she was dating an actor from Stranger Things and ended up divorcing her husband and sending money to the scammer. The ordeal suffered by McKala, a single mother from Kentucky, was shared on the YouTube show Catfished, where it was revealed she believed she was in a secret online relationship with Australian actor Dacre Montgomery, who plays Billy Hargrove in the Netflix series. Over a year, McKala shared online messages with a person she sincerely believed was Montgomery, despite never having seen or even spoken to him on the phone. McKala, an amateur actress and filmmaker, wanted so desperately to be with “Montgomery” that she filed for divorce from her husband and began sending him gift cards worth thousands of dollars. When she began to question how genuine their relationship was, McKala sought the help of the show Catfished. She explained how she had separated from her “very toxic” husband and joined an online creatives group, where she believes she met and “hit it off” with a user who later claimed to be Montgomery. McKala said: “I’m suspicious from the get-go, until he starts doing things that make me believe he is who he is.” In real life, Montgomery has been in a relationship with the model Liv Pollock since 2017, but McKala claimed the person she was talking to claimed the couple were unhappy and having issues. “He was venting to me after a few months about his partner, saying she is very controlling of him. He doesn’t get to do the things he wants to do. She’s always there. She’s always got to supervise,” she explained, “I kind of empathise with that because my ex-husband was that way.” After exchanging messages online for months, “Montgomery” asked McKala to be his girlfriend, despite the real Montgomery still being with his girlfriend. Victim Divorces Husband For Stranger Things Romance Scammer! www.youtube.com McKala was told that the pair were actually separated, but just keeping up appearances. She was further convinced by their lack of visibility on each other’s social media. She said: “He wasn’t posting about her. She wasn’t posting about him. The only thing that I have seen in the last two years...was a thing where she was posting about their five-year anniversary.” McKala dismissed the Catfished team’s concerns that she hadn’t spoken to him on the phone, arguing that his girlfriend was controlling and always “glued at his hip”. He sent her poetry, told her to watch Stranger Things and gave her an ultimatum between her husband and him. “Before I knew it, it was turning into $100, $200 gift cards,” she explained and estimated that in total she sent him around $10,000 worth. The Catfished team broke the news to McKala that there was no evidence the actor and his girlfriend were broken up, he made $150,000 per episode of Stranger Things and did not need gift cards. Investigations showed the cheque he had sent her was false and taken from the internet and even the lasagna he allegedly made was actually a picture taken from a Martha Stewart recipe. McKala was left heartbroken by the discovery but admitted that she was vulnerable to being taken advantage of by a scammer in this way. She explained: “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.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

TROY, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2023--

Ryan McMahon hit a sacrifice fly with the bases load in the bottom of the 10th inning, lifting the Colorado Rockies to a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres on Monday night

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets by Mike Dolan After the worst week since March

By Daphne Psaledakis WASHINGTON The U.S. on Thursday said Russian mercenary force Wagner Group may be working through

TL;DR: As of July 4, get these Open Ear Induction Stereo Wireless Headphones for just

A Russian missile strike on a residential area killed at least four people and injured dozens more in

Eerie, gothic and gradually a little too weird for its own good, "The Changeling" lays out what feels like a modern-day Grimm's fairy tale, set in and around the strange land of New York.

Pick a winner, get $150 in bonus bets with this offer from FanDuel. Read more to learn how you can take your shot at winning bonus bets as soon as tonight.

Defense ministers and senior defense officials from 12 northern European countries have met in Poland to discuss stepping up deterrence and security on NATO's eastern flank and strengthening Ukraine's defenses, ahead of NATO's summer summit

Rapper Lil Baby has shut down claims that he is featured in a NSFW video circulating online. The fuzzy recording was said to feature a man resembling the 28-year-old performing a sex act. It didn't take long for him to turn to his Instagram Story to hit back at internet rumours, calling it "dumb ass click bait" (sic). "Y'all gotta stop using my name and likeness when y'all get bored, then the extremes mfs go to for clout is sick," he wrote to his 23.1 million followers. "Ain't no mystery in my history on NO LEVEL. This is my last time addressing any kind of dumb ass click bait." While the source is unknown and it is unclear whether the footage was created through AI, there has recently been a surge in deepfake porn – mostly targeting female celebrities and influencers. Cybersecurity expert and What the Hack podcast host Adam Levin previously explained to Indy100 that deepfake porn is created mainly for profit – but also a strange way for people to "show off editing skills and click trolling." "This sort of content predates the web," Levin explained, "Because it is mostly a digital activity now, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to trace back content to the person who created it." Worryingly, Levin explained that "as long as every party involved is a legal adult, there aren’t very many laws on the books to prevent or punish the distribution of illicit content." He claimed "it’s nearly impossible to remove any content published online, pornographic or otherwise," before adding: "That said, if all the parties are known, there may be legally actionable kinds of deepfake porn content." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.