Woman divorces husband thinking she was in relationship with ‘Stranger Things’ star

A woman divorced her husband and was even scammed out of $10,000 after she believed she was having a year-long relationship with ‘Stranger Things’ actor Dacre Montgomery.  

According to international media, a single mother from US state of Kentucky was scammed into money after she was fooled into thinking she was in a secret online relationship with Australian actor Dacre Montgomery, the actor who played Billy Hargrove in the Netflix hit series, Stranger Things.

In a series called Catfished, a YouTube channel dedicated to shedding light on intricate scams on the internet, McKayla, an amateur filmmaker, explained that she met her mysterious lover started believing that she was talking to the actor.

After some exchanges, she came to believe that the person she was talking to was Dacre, one of her favorite actors. They started to “hit it off,” leading McKayla to divorce her now ex-husband whom she described in the video as “very toxic.”

“I’m suspicious from the get-go until he starts doing things that make me believe he is who he is,” she told Catfished.

After a year, the “celebrity” asked McKala, an amateur actress and filmmaker, out on a date. “He said, ‘But you have to be quiet because, you know, I’m still with Liv (Pollock, his real life partner)’,” the 28-year-old explained in a video posted on YouTube.

She kept sending him thousands of dollars in gift cards. Then one day, he asked McKala to choose between him and her husband. She decided within seconds and left her husband, as per the report.

The scammer also asked for financial help, which amounted to $10,000 (Rs 8.31 lakh). He claimed that his girlfriend controlled his bank accounts and therefore needed money.

After a few months, when he did not meet her, McKala began to doubt the validity of their relationship. She realised that she was being the victim of fraud and decided to stop contacting him.

Reflecting on her experience, McKala confessed that love can lead people to do foolish and irrational things. She cited her fear of abandonment and her people-pleasing nature as vulnerabilities exploited by these scammers.