Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
This Famous Actor Scam - The Lydia Abdelmalek story
Sat, 01 Feb 2025
Lydia Abdelmalek from Melbourne Australia catfished 2 other women by pretending to be famous soap opera actor Lincoln Lewis
Chapter 1: Who is Lydia Abdelmalek and what did she do?
So this woman is about to pull off this crazy catfishing scheme by pretending to be a famous soap opera actor. Now her name's Lydia and she's around 21 years old. She lives in Melbourne, Australia and she apparently lives with her parents and doesn't have a lot going on. So one day, I guess she gets bored and decides, eh, I'm going to go catfish some people. Might be fun.
Chapter 2: How did Lydia create a fake Lincoln Lewis profile?
So she makes a new Facebook profile. Of course, she doesn't use her own name. Instead, she uses the name of this famous Australian soap opera actor, this guy, Lincoln Lewis. And she makes this page look really authentic, and she starts pretending to be fake Lincoln Lewis. Now at some point, Lydia, as fake Lincoln, sends a friend request to this random woman.
Now we don't know her real name, but we'll just call her Betty. And Betty, she's a nice woman. She's a flight attendant. And by some crazy coincidence, she actually knew the real Lincoln Lewis. Like they grew up in the same area as kids or something. Now, they don't really talk now, now that he's famous, but they used to know each other.
Chapter 3: How did Betty fall for the catfishing scheme?
So, of course, Betty accepts the request from this famous guy she knew as a kid. And they start messaging back and forth, sending photos, and Betty has no idea that the person she's talking to is just Lydia catfishing her. And over time, their conversations get more flirty and they're sending adult photos of themselves to each other.
Now, I don't know how Lydia faked nude photos of Lincoln Lewis out of Photoshop, I don't know, but somehow she did. And soon enough, Betty is in a full-blown romantic relationship with fake Lincoln Lewis. And so naturally, of course, at some point, Betty wants to meet up with Lincoln. Like, hey, when can we meet IRL?
Chapter 4: What happened when Betty tried to meet 'Lincoln'?
So they make plans to meet up, but every time they're about to meet, fake Lincoln cancels at the last minute. And it keeps happening again and again and again. And after it happens enough times, Betty starts getting suspicious. Like, is my boyfriend really Lincoln Lewis? Now remember, Betty and Lincoln grew up in the same area as kids and they used to know each other.
And in fact, they actually still have a mutual friend in common. So Betty reaches out to their mutual friend and gets the real Lincoln Lewis's phone number and she calls him. And the real Lincoln Lewis picks up and Betty's like, hey, have we been dating each other for the last few months? And the real Lincoln is like, no.
Chapter 5: How did the real Lincoln Lewis find out?
And so Betty explains to him what's been going on, that someone friended her on Facebook, pretending to be him, and that now they are in a relationship. And real Lincoln is like, what the ? and he gets so mad that he goes and tweets about it. It has come to my attention that weird people have made Facebook profiles impersonating me and causing a lot of drama. Just deleted Facebook.
Hope this stops. And Betty is also mad and she goes and reports fake Lincoln, aka Lydia, to the police. But unfortunately, police, they don't really do anything. They're like, eh, you got catfished. What do you want us to do? Meanwhile, Lydia knows Betty no longer believes her. But she isn't going to give up. She seems to enjoy catfishing, and she doesn't plan on stopping.
Chapter 6: What was Lydia's next move after being discovered?
So she contacts Betty and tells her another big lie. She's like, okay, I'm not really Lincoln Lewis. My name is actually Michael. So now Lydia is pretending to be fake Michael. And fake Michael starts Betty and he tells her that he made the fake Lincoln Lewis profile Only as a joke, like he was just goofing around. And the worst part about this is that Betty believes him.
And she's still mad at him, but she continues to talk to him. Like, she must be really lonely. Because soon enough, they're talking all the time again, like every day. And eventually, Betty falls in love with fake Michael. And they end up in a full-blown romantic relationship. Now, here's where it gets really weird. As if it's not already weird.
Chapter 7: Why did Lydia start sending threatening messages?
For some reason, now, not only is Lydia pretending to be fake Michael, aka Betty's boyfriend, but she will also pretend to be other anonymous people. And when she pretends to be other anonymous people, she'll send threatening DMs to Betty and threatening text messages. Like, lots of messages. Sometimes up to 80 a day. Like, I'm gonna unalive you, or whatever. Like, what the hell is she doing?
And one time Lydia, pretending to be fake Michael, goes as far as to stage a kidnapping. Like one day fake Michael starts sending Betty texts claiming that he's being hurt. And then an unknown number sends her messages threatening her, demanding Michael's contact info. And then bam, Betty gets another text from a supposed federal agent.
And this fake federal agent sends her a photo of fake Michael bound and gagged like he's been kidnapped. I don't know how Lydia faked all of this, but it is insane. So anyway, Betty's freaking out because she thinks her boyfriend's been kidnapped and it's this whole chaotic scene. Now let me pause this story here because this is about to get worse. Now let's talk about this woman, Jess.
Now like Betty, Jess is also Australian. She's also a flight attendant. And a few years earlier, Jess was on a flight working and by sheer coincidence, the real Lincoln Lewis was also on that flight. And so Jess is a big fan and she stops him and she gives him a hug and she asks him for a picture and they take this picture right here.
Sometime later, Jess goes and friends Lincoln Lewis on Facebook. Here's the thing though, the account that she friends isn't really his account. It's actually the fake account that Lydia had made to catfish Betty. So Lydia is the one who is now Facebook friends with Jess. So Jess now thinks she's Facebook friends with the real Lincoln Lewis.
And of course, Lydia takes full advantage of this and she starts her catfishing scheme all over again. And so now Jess and fake Lincoln start talking and they hit it off and they're chatting every day and soon they're texting all the time. And sometimes they'll talk on the phone. And I'm not sure how that works exactly. Like was Lydia putting on a fake voice? I don't know.
But they apparently talk on the phone a lot and eventually they get into a long distance romantic relationship. Which is crazy. And it seems like Lydia is just really good at this catfishing stuff. Like she's never going to get caught. Until one day, Jess gets a message from a coworker who works at the airlines and coworkers like, Hey, I just saw Lincoln Lewis on my flight.
And Jess is like, well, that can't be. I was just talking to him. And so Jess goes and hits up fake Lincoln. And she confronts him like, how can you be in two places at once? And fake Lincoln, AKA Lydia, makes up, I don't know, some bullshit excuse. But see, Jess is smarter than that. And she's not about to get played. And so she decides she is done.
And she tries to cut things off with fake Lincoln. But fake Lincoln is like, no, he's not about to let her get away. So he starts sending her threatening messages and calling her all the time and harassing her and apparently contacting her family. And so Jess is fed up. She's like this. I'm going to take whoever this is down. And she starts recording their phone conversations.
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