Nick Piccone
Mychal Kendricks was the victim of a catchfish scam, according to a fantastic report on BuzzFeed today. Katie Notopoulos detailed a serial catfisher who might have destroyed the relationship between Cassie and Diddy.
“Seriya Gebru” is her name. She had 178k fake Twitter followers. An album sporting her name on iTunes was created with an old girls group created by Diddy. Bossip ran this story that likely contained what we now know is false information.
It’s all very well-detailed in Notopoulos’ report. She definitely did her homework. But what homework she did leads us to Mychal Kendricks, who was one of the people that Gebru, under the alias of Lucia Cole, contacted. Cole wanted Kendricks to star in a music video. Kendricks was game.
Philadelphia Eagles player Mychael Kendricks got an email, sent to his manager, from someone claiming to be part of Lucia Cole’s “team” saying that Cole wanted him to appear in an upcoming music video of hers, and she was willing to pay — $16,000. It was the offseason, and a good chunk of change, so Kendricks agreed. After back and forth between their managers, Kendricks and Cole texted and talked on the phone. Cole opened up to him about her life, her past relationships, her difficult childhood. Kendricks’s degree is in social work from UC Berkeley, and its in his nature to want to help someone. “She really made me feel like she like a bruised bird,” he told BuzzFeed News over Facetime. “She tried to make me feel for her.”
Kendricks making that college education worth it. Good for him. But he still wanted to be in this music video.
But he was still interested in doing the music video since it was a business deal, and the fact that her photos were so easy on the eyes didn’t exactly hurt. “She’s bad, bro,” he said about Reese Crowell, the real woman behind Cole’s photos (“bad” meaning “hot”). Cole tried to flirt with him and asked him to send photos of himself, but he turned her down. He wanted to keep the relationship professional. “As a social worker, you understand how to keep barriers that are appropriate for both parties,” he explained.
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Eventually, Cole was exposed as a fraud, and Kendricks’s friend sent him a link about it. “I was like, I knew something was weird as sin! I fucking called it!” But he was also upset about it. “I was mad. I messaged her and said, ‘This is such a bitchy thing to do. I don’t know who you are on the other line, but you need some help.’”
So, is it really Kendricks being catfished if he thought something was off from the beginning? Probably. He still thought the music video was real and thought the photos were real. He talked to her on the phone. But he still thought something was up.
Big ups to Kendricks, though, for not sending “Cole” photos of himself. Have you ever been catfished? Have you ever catfished somebody else? Are you currently trying to catfish me or Sean? How about Seth? Let us know!