“Stupid and desperate,” Netflix viewers labeled 43-year-old Kirat Assi after spending nearly ten years believing she was in a romantic relationship with a man named Bobby Jandu, only to later discover it was all a hoax orchestrated by her cousin.

The woman’s story became infamous after it was featured in the Sweet Bobby podcast, a series that focuses on catfishers, people who falsify their identities online to get into relationships with people and scam them.

Assi’s testimony became so popular that it became the subject of a Netflix documentary, which made its debut last Wednesday (October 1&). However, with the increased attention came both recognition and criticism.

“She seems desperate. Ten years!? I can’t believe she fell for something like this,“ one viewer said.

“I’m not stupid. I’m not dumb. I’m the one who chose to speak up,“ Assi said in an interview with the BBC, addressing those who were calling her gullible. 

A woman who was catfished for almost a decade spoke out after being labeled “stupid“ and “gullible“ by viewers

Image credits: Netflix

“I’m the one that’s put herself in the firing line, and I hope others will come forward,“ she added, hoping that her story would bring light to the issue and help those suffering in silence.

Assi spent years talking to her catfish, a supposed cardiologist with whom she spent more than nine years talking. Their conversations were deep and intimate, with Assi forming a profound emotional bond with the supposed “Bobby.”

Their interactions would advance to the point of becoming sexual. Still, the pair never met in person due to the catfish’s increasingly bizarre excuses, from suffering a brain tumor to being shot. Bobby’s accounts were backed up by supposed family members who, of course, were also fake.

Image credits: Netflix

Eventually, after nine years of communication, Assi managed to track down the real Bobby, at least according to what she deduced from the photos the catfish sent her. However, upon finally meeting the man of her dreams, he had no idea who she was.

The truth finally emerged when her cousin, Simran Bhogal, confessed to creating Bobby and a completely fabricated social network of friends and family around the fake man to facilitate the deception.

While talking to the BBC, Assi explained that she doesn’t know or understand why her cousin decided to deceive her for so many years

Image credits: Netflix

“The extent to which that person went, you can’t ever justify it,“ she said. “I can’t understand why she didn’t stop or why she felt pleasure from hearing somebody in pain.”

The catfishing was seemingly an attempt by Simran to get close, sentimentally, to Assi. The interactions began in November 2010, when she created a fake profile of her supposed ex-boyfriend.

Simran then made up a story straight out of a telenovela, with her supposed ex-boyfriend dying and “Bobby,” his brother, stepping in to receive her condolences.

Image credits: Netflix

“Bobby“ and Assi struck a friendship, with the latter stating that she saw the former as a “little brother.“ Simran, however, decided to add further drama to the story and invented the situation of Bobby being shot.

The outlandish nature of the catfish’s stories was one of the main reasons Assi was mocked online, a fact that she acknowledged.

“It’s ridiculous, I know,“ she said. “But at every step, these mad happenings were being backed up by other people.”

Unable to keep the facade for longer, Simran confessed the truth on June 11, 2018, with Assi “vomiting“ and “passing out“ upon receiving the news.

“She has taken ten years of my life from me, years I will not get back. “

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