Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (2024)

[bunniefuu]

No matter which way you go

No matter which way you stay

You're out of my

mind, out of my mind

Out of my mind,

out of my mind

I was walking with a ghost

I said please,

please don't insist

I was walking with a ghost

I said please,

please don't insist

No matter which way you go

No matter which way you stay

You're out of my

mind, out of my mind

Out of my mind

Out of my mind...

In 2011, we'd come off the road.

I had been on tour for

two years straight,

around the world multiple times.

I just was relaxed, post-tour

Tegan, living in LA.

One night, I went

to a birthday party.

I remember being really

excited to see everybody.

I was barely in the door,

and somebody had put a

tequila on ice in my hands.

And I just remember

going out on the deck

and the sky was so beautiful

and everybody was so happy.

The night starting

off so positively.

Maybe an hour after

I got to the party,

someone came up and um, said that

my sister was looking for me.

I'm fairly certain

I brushed them off.

And then someone else

came up to me and said,

"Sara's trying to

get a hold of you."

And at that point I was convinced,

like, someone in our family had died.

I don't think Sara's ever "tried

to get ahold of me" before,

so I was like, "Oh, God."

I remember going inside

and looking for my phone

and seeing all

these missed calls.

It's-It's like a surreal

thing to imagine now

because I'm at a

massive q*eer party.

I'm like, you know,

finger in one ear

trying to, like, make

out what they're saying.

Probably a little intoxicated,

and they start to unravel

this super terrifying story.

In the beginning we thought

it was just a leak of a demo,

and then we realized

email addresses

had been directly hacked.

This hacker had access to Tegan

and Sara's personal information,

passports,

their mom's medical history.

They also knew

where we all lived.

But all of this was just step

one in something much worse.

The more we started to zoom out

and understand how

far-reaching, how invasive,

the more we understood

how little we really knew.

It got darker when we

realized multiple fans

had been catfished and thought

that they were talking to me.

It's not something

that happened,

it's something that currently

happens and is happening.

And 16 years later,

there's someone still out

there pretending to be me.

Why are we sitting here today?

We are sitting here today

to talk about Fake Tegan

and my experience with

someone pretending to be me.

Why did you never talk

about this publicly?

Why have you kept it a secret?

You know, as soon as

we got the green light

to do this project, I

immediately regretted it.

I actually regret it now.

That's amazing.

This is gonna make a lot

of people uncomfortable.

It puts our fan base

under the spotlight.

I don't wanna accuse

the wrong person.

I...

had to go against...

a decade of instinct,

which was that if we talk

about it, it'll make it worse.

And yet, I...

can't stop thinking about it.

Someone can still pretend

to be me, they still do.

I just wanna know what

the f*ck happened.

Tegan didn't go

to school today

Left me all alone to play

I loved the moments of discovery

that we could make music.

One day you don't know how

to do it and the next day,

"Holy sh*t, I know

how to make a song...

and so can my sister."

And then we can sing together

and that feels pretty amazing.

Tegan was like, "Let's borrow

money and make an album.

"Let's go on tour.

Let's put posters up with

our faces all over the city."

Complicated, graced by icons

Touched by saints,

I am powerless

The first people that

knew our music well enough

to sing along were our friends.

And then in high school,

we won a contest at

the local university

and every major label in Canada

tried to sign us.

Signed by Neil Young,

that's gotta be exciting.

Uh, yeah, it's very exciting.

I'd like to bring out a couple

of friends, Tegan and Sara.

Our first tour was huge

opening for Neil Young.

You know, we were 20,

late '90s, early 2000s.

We were very q*eer.

I hope I never figure

out who broke your heart

And if I do

If I do

The early part of our

career was really tough.

We were in indie rock,

very male, very straight.

We weren't really sure that

this was gonna be our career.

We coul... We couldn't

really sustain a living yet.

Tegan and Sara would

often be described

as "l*sbian folk duo."

The music that did

well in that time

in a mainstream way

was really boring.

The years start coming

and they don't stop coming

She says she's no good

Yeah, yeah

It is just sort of all generic,

it's all general interest music.

That did provide the ideal space

for underground and

alternative and indie music

to bubble up in a real way.

When we put out So Jealous,

college radio stations

started playing us.

So young people started

to come to the shows.

No matter which way you go

We started playing

bigger venues,

thousands of people showing

up every night, singing along,

wearing our faces

on their shirts.

Out of my mind

That's when we felt the shift

and it started to

feel like fandom.

What's your favorite band?

Tegan and Sara.

And it was like, "Oh, I think, like,

this is, like, a real thing that we do."

Thank you very much, everybody.

When we started to have fans,

we started to talk to them.

You know, we'd go out to the

merch table after every show

and be out there for

an hour, two hours.

I see it.

I just want a

picture behind bars.

Taking photos, but mostly

just talking to everybody,

just getting to know them.

Similar to us,

like, had, like, mullets

and asymmetrical haircuts,

started to feel like there

were people who understood

what we were trying to

do and understood us.

We just started to see ourself

reflected in our audience

and it felt really nice.

In the summer of 2007,

I was sent to interview

Tegan and Sara.

It really made a huge impact

to know that part of their

identity was that they were q*eer.

It's shocking to think

that it's not that long ago

you know, that it was that rare.

I didn't know very many q*eer

artists at the time at all.

You just didn't really

have a lot of chances

to see yourself, you know, reflected

in, in somebody else on stage.

Being a fan of Tegan and

Sara meant something.

That was code for like, "I'm

q*eer" or "I'm different,"

or "I went through

a horrific breakup,"

or all three.

We'd get letters from women

around the world who would say,

"I can't talk to anyone

about the fact that I am g*y,

but I'm telling you."

That was when I

started to feel like,

"Oh, something about us

is drawing in these people

and making it safe for

them to share things,"

and that's different.

Our shows and the spaces

that we created as a band

became really important places

that we hoped they'd

feel comfortable in.

It felt absolutely our

responsibility to take care of them.

Happy birthday

Tegan and Sara

Happy birthday to you

These are all the

shows that I've been to

in the last 18 years.

When they go to new states,

I go there just so I can add to the

map of the states I've seen them in.

These are where I have shoved

all of my concert tickets

and, yeah, here's one of

my earliest ones from 2007.

These are all Tegan

and Sara shirts.

Put these in, in rainbow order

so I can find the

ones I'm looking for.

We decided we wanted to do, like,

an evening with Tegan and Sara

and feel... Like, we've

played a whole new record

and then do old stuff

and just give everybody their

money's worth, you know?

I started filming in 2005

when I got my first

digital camera.

And at the time,

YouTube didn't exist,

so I, you know, would

upload my videos,

uh, to a, like a

file sharing site

and then I would upload

those links to LiveJournal.

So, LiveJournal, you know, early on it

was a little corner of the Internet,

and it was like one of the only

places I found to meet fans.

You know, when you

start being a fan

and you don't have anybody

else to talk to about the thing

that you're interested

in, it's kind of lonely.

And so you look for your people.

Once you meet other people,

then you just enable each other.

I started listening to

Tegan and Sara in college.

I was going through a really tough

time realizing that I was q*eer.

It was just... fear is

the, the dominant feeling,

when I think back,

I was just afraid.

The community aspect

is... was a huge part

of the early Tegan

and Sara days for me.

It was just, it was magical.

Like, you had to have

been there to understand.

This was a new era

of social media

and different kinda

communication with fans

and all the dialogue

that was made possible

by, by networking sort

of added fuel to the fire

of people's desire to

talk about Tegan and Sara.

The thing that happens

at shows is now happening

in an "online space."

Like, I remember that

becoming an idea.

That was new, that

was totally new.

It was like opening

a door at a party

and finding a bunch of

people are talking about you

and you're like, "You're

talking about me?"

Like, "I'll leave, I'll

leave, I'll stay, I'll come.

No, you, you guys

stay, I'll leave."

I was the front-line of

communication for any social media,

any, you know, email, anything,

that c... it came to me first.

And so, I got to see all

these heartbreaking stories

and heartwarming stories about how

much their music meant to people.

They were incredibly good

at building community.

When we came on board, there

was already a groundswell

of Tegan and Sara

fans around the world.

Many of them communicated

with Tegan and Sara

through burgeoning social

media and, and mailing lists

and sort of at shows,

and Tegan and Sara

really were very good at

fostering and building that

relationship with their fans.

It was a lifeline

for a lot of people.

These people connected with

someone being out and proud

and living their life on stage.

And they were like, "These are

my people, this is my community."

Around the fall of 2008, I

remember being on Facebook

and I got a message from

another Tegan and Sara fan.

She said, "Here's Tegan's

profile and it's the real Tegan."

Hi, everyone, we're Tegan

and Sara and we are...

Tegan and Sara were super

known in the community

as being very accessible.

We're in Copenhagen.

And so I thought, "Why not?

I'll reach out."

Eventually she replied.

We started talking on Facebook.

Sometimes, we would

talk every day.

At some point she started

sending me song demos.

Eventually, I did tell

a couple of people

that I had become

friends with Tegan.

They were excited for me, they

thought it was really cool.

And then I remember Tegan

had bought a new condo.

And she had sent pictures

of this new condo,

you know, all the

rooms in the house.

Tegan's partner, like, the back

of her head was in a couple shots

as they're looking

around the rooms.

At one point, Tegan had told me

that their mom had breast cancer.

I remember thinking it was

a very deeply personal thing

to share with someone

and I thought,

"Wow, they must

really trust me."

It felt really cool

to be that trusted.

At this point, it had become

a long-term friendship

at a time when I

really needed it.

In 2011, she sent

me a shared drive

and a password...

that included passport

photos for Tegan and Sara

and all of their band.

This was a moment where I had to

kind of sit back and digest it

and...

because it felt really

off and my gut said,

"Why would she be

sending this to me?"

So, I reached out to my friend who I

knew had connections to her management

and I'll never forget

I got a text...

that said, "She has

no idea who you are."

And I said something like,

"Well, then Tegan

has a big problem."

I remember our worlds

exploded Friday, May 20, 2011.

I spoke to Julie that

day for the first time,

and I, you know, was

completely dumbfounded.

She had been carrying

on what she believed

was a, you know,

Internet-based relationship

with "Tegan" for two years.

And as I asked, you know,

what types of information

and things had been shared,

there were three things I'll

never forget she told me.

She told me that she had a

song called God Help Yourself,

which was a demo Tegan had

written a few months ago.

And this was an era where demos

were kept under, you know,

lock and key very carefully.

And so, a-a leak of a demo

was a really big deal to us.

And then she told me she had

Tegan and Sara's passports,

that Fake Tegan had

shared passport scans.

And when I saw them,

they were the real thing.

And that of course

completely haunted us,

because obviously a passport scan can

be the beginning of identity theft.

And then possibly the

most alarming thing

from a personal

standpoint was that

she knew that Tegan and Sara's

mum, Sonia, had breast cancer.

The fact that they knew

that my mum had had cancer

and that wasn't something

we publicly talked about.

It's not something we

publicly talk about now.

It was creepy, like

it was... it...

'Cause it introduced the idea

that it's someone we know.

Is it possible that someone

who knows intimate

details about me

is pretending to be me?

They just need to know

me or know someone

one or two steps from me.

As soon as we found out someone

was pretending to be me,

we just started to refer to

them as Fake Tegan or Fegan.

No one was operating

at a high level

with knowledge of how to

protect people online.

Like, we were way

out of our depth.

It was the Wild West.

So, we sent out a very

clear message on socials,

on our website to

let people know

that we're not carrying

on personal relationships

with any fans over email.

Multiple people came forward

from all over the world

saying that they too

had been corresponding

with someone who said they were

Tegan for varying amounts of time,

in some cases it

had been for years.

Because Tegan and Sara were so

close and open to their fans,

communicating, a part

of the community,

they believed it.

So, whoever Fegan was, took

advantage of that for sure.

But taking advantage

of young q*eer women,

like, just disgusting.

This whole new really

scary universe opened up

and it started to make me

feel paranoid about everyone.

At that time, it was like

this weird map populated

with all these other people

where... So it was like,

"Here's my life, here's what

I'm doing, here's the truth,

"here's what everyone

who loves me and knows me

knows about me and I

know about myself."

Running parallel to that

true story about myself

was a fake story about me,

where Fake Tegan is connecting

and making all

these relationships

with a whole world

of other people.

- Hi.

- Hi.

Hi, I'm Tegan.

Hi, Tegan.

Erin, it's such an honor

to meet both of you.

I'm a huge fan.

Today, I'm hoping you

could take me back

to, like, when you first

started talking to, to Tegan.

It was the time of

the Internet forum,

so, LiveJournal and Tumblr,

and where I found, like,

people talking about,

"Hey, Tegan's got a personal

profile on Last.fm."

And I messaged that profile

and then eventually

got a response.

I had gone to a show

and at that show, real Tegan,

you, had handed me your set list

and I went home and

I got on Facebook

and, uh, I got a message

from "Tegan Quin"

and I thought it

was just like a fan,

but at some point Fake Tegan

added me as a friend on Facebook.

I, of course, go to, like, their profile

to see, you know, who this person is,

and I'm looking through

everything and I'm like,

"What is... What is going on?

This is, this is strange."

Because the people

that were writing

on Fake Tegan's wall

were your actual friends.

They were people

from in your life.

- Right.

- And it just, it felt very real.

Can you talk about what it was like

to be receiving these messages,

how many times it

would come in per day,

that kinda thing?

In the beginning, it wasn't that

conversational at that time.

It was like, you know,

throwing me little tidbits,

like, three-word

responses that I'd get.

But Tegan was talking to me.

It was like this, you

know, secret that I had.

Like, I was thinking

this is Tegan.

And are you talking,

like, all the time?

It was pretty constant.

I mean, you could... if

you look at the emails,

it was, like, every day.

We'll talk more about, "Oh,

what are you doing today?"

And they're like, "Oh, it's

freezing, I'm in Denver."

And I would look at

your tour schedule

- and you would be in Denver for that day.

- Right.

And I'd be like, "Oh, okay."

And then, like, I

started thinking,

"Well, if it's really Tegan, like,

they wouldn't be talking to me

when shows are going on."

They would never talk

to me at the wrong time.

It was always, like, the "correct

time" when you would be available.

You know, I would get

music from this person.

Like, I was getting

unreleased music

and after maybe, like, a

month-plus of us chatting,

it was really hard to

deny at that point.

Yeah.

Oh, it was very exciting, yeah.

It... You know, we had some

intimate back and forths.

It became more

flirty at that time.

Okay, did it feel like

it escalated to a point

there was almost

like a relationship?

- Yeah! Yeah.

- Yeah.

Like, I just felt like you

didn't want people to know

that you were talking to people

and, like, it was a super

big secret that I had,

and, like, I wanted to

be respectful of you,

so I didn't tell anybody.

- Yeah.

- They were leaning into

that notion of

knowing that, like,

as a group of fans of this band

that, like, we loved

Tegan and Sara so much

that we, you know, would

protect them at that level

of not embarrassing Tegan.

They definitely left a mark

on me, that's for sure.

When you found out that the

person you were talking to

all that time that you

thought was me, wasn't me,

what... what did...

what did you feel?

It was shocking, you know? To

hear the, the finality of like,

"Yes, it was in fact not real."

And, like, going back

and reliving some of it,

I'm like, "Man, this stuff

was really convincing,

and I... I wasn't dumb

for believing it."

- Like, it seemed so real.

- No.

How did it end?

She got kind of upset with me.

She found out that I had

sent the demo to Tara,

another Tegan and Sara fan.

She was just somebody that I

had this communication with

and I would tell her...

She was somebody else that

I could talk to about it.

Tegan emailed me one day saying,

"Why did you, you know,

send these to anybody?"

And I'm, and I-I

was thinking like,

"How are you... how do you

even know about this person?"

Tara sent me a direct message,

because she had been talking

to Tegan for one or two years

and she was very upset because

as she'd been talking to Tegan,

she, she told me that Tegan had

gotten progressively... meaner

and even a little a*usive

as the time went on.

And she was devastated by this.

But this girl, you

know, was like,

"I-I can't stop talking

to her because it's Tegan

and this band is really

important to me."

Um, and so, she just felt, you know,

really conflicted about, about that.

It was really upsetting to her.

Were you an early fan?

Lie, what was your fandom

like with Tegan and Sara?

Do you still have access

to that old phone?

Um, if it's, if it's

at all possible,

if you'd feel comfortable,

like, sharing any of it.

Like that's... We're trying

to basically figure out,

like, what the, the patterns

were like and stuff like that.

I mean, that would be

so significant, right?

In the old days, the hacking was

they're these criminal people

and they're stealing things.

Catfishing basically,

now we're talking about someone

who's trying to manipulate

another individual.

They are making a connection.

They create the possibility

of an intimate relationship.

There's a real motivation

and attraction for

insecure people to do this

because they, they get to sort

of act, uh, confident and secure.

There's a, a significant

psychological reward in it.

You're deceiving somebody and

you're manipulating somebody

and then having that

power over them.

Being in control, being

able to get somebody to do

basically what you want them to do

or say what you want them to say,

get them to wanna do

things to please you.

Once you taste that, it's like, "Oh,

this is a really fabulous feeling.

I feel good about myself."

And so, you want

to do that again.

This could become an addiction.

Do you get a sense of

Fegan's age and gender

in these early exchanges?

Female and young.

Young women are particularly

good at this kind of catfishing.

They have the social

and emotional skills

that basically make them

really expert at this.

After talking to

their management,

I just spent the entire week

sending all of these documents,

all of the chat logs

that I could find,

sending anything I

could to help to Piers,

because at this point it

was... my mind was just blown.

It was like somebody

punched me in the gut.

I was devastated,

I was humiliated,

I felt ashamed.

It ruined, uh, their music

for me for a long time.

I didn't listen for a long time.

I didn't travel to shows to

meet up with people anymore.

I became so paranoid that I cut

most of my acquaintances out.

There, there are really only a

couple people I talk to this day

from that time

period that I trust

because it was just

too much for me.

I just couldn't trust anybody.

But the fear, of course,

was that we didn't know

if this was just step one in

some unfolding series of events

that could get much worse.

What if they did try

to steal all our money?

What if they did try to

somehow get to me and Tegan?

Or what if they did try

to get to our partners?

It immediately got into the-the-the

fear of sort of physical safety.

You know, someone with

ill intent could show up

at one of their houses.

It totally felt like a stalker.

I felt so under attack,

it just got worse.

Tegan called me

and she asked if I remembered

the email I sent her

asking for her password for

her file sharing program

and I was very confused.

I didn't understand what

she was talking about.

And she's like, "Well, you

asked me for my password

for my file sharing."

And I was like, "Absolutely

not, I would never do that."

And then I was informed

that there were many emails

coming from my email

address to Tegan,

which I obviously didn't send.

There was one from

my mum as well.

And that felt, I mean, that

just made me question everyone

around me, my...

even my managers.

It was terrible to be suspicious

of people in my life that I loved.

It felt like somebody had access

to your personal thoughts,

your relationships,

and they had an ulterior

motive, obviously.

So they're not there

to just be an observer.

You know, they're there to

take something and use it

and potentially hurt people

that I love and care about.

Quickly, over the next few days

it just became,

we're all leaking.

Like, our emails, our phones,

like, I mean, who knows?

I mean, we started to

have conversations, like,

"We need to get rid

of our computers."

At that point, like,

if we're a house,

I felt like someone

might be in the yard,

but suddenly I realized they

were in the house with us.

People who were very close to me

all of a sudden were involved.

I met Tegan early February 2006.

A friend of Tegan and

Sara's, he hit me up

and said, "Hey, do you

wanna be my plus-one

at this Tegan and Sara show?"

Met Lindsey at a show

and started a two-year

pursuit of her.

I was, like, mesmerized by

her, it consumed my life.

We just started

exchanging long emails.

I thought, "This

person is so cool."

Really exciting,

and also terrifying.

We talked 1,000 times

a day in, in text.

It was, like, five

hours on the phone.

It was flirty.

But then she didn't

wanna date me.

Call

Break it off

- Call, break

- Call, break

My own heart

Maybe I would have been

something you'd be good at

After years of pining

for this person,

we ended up actually

starting to date

and in that time wrote

an album called The Con,

about someone who I chased for years

to try to convince them to date me.

And I talked about it on stage.

I was so desperately in love

and obsessed at the same time.

And I would, I would get up

in the middle of the night.

I would be waiting for a text

from this person I liked,

and I would get up in

the middle of the night

and there would be no text,

so I would pop out the battery

and restart my

phone just in case.

But I think the

heartbreak and mystery

and devastation of The Con,

made people feel like they had

really gotten behind the curtain.

Fegan created

emails for Lindsey.

So there would be

these exchanges

where "Lindsey, Fake Lindsey,"

was talking to Fake Tegan,

and they would copy in a victim.

I was literally like, "Are

you f*cking kidding me?"

And I was like, "Oh, my God." I

mean, like, my stomach dropped.

Lindsey was a public

person herself, you know?

She was a photographer,

she'd been in a band.

This is the person that I love.

I just moved to a new

country to be with her.

You know, it was my whole life,

like, feeling violated, feeling

embarrassed, feeling angry,

like, shutting right down

but also feeling guilty,

because I had spoken

about her publicly.

I felt very singled out,

and that's a weird feeling

as a twin, an identical twin

where everything has

been about we and us,

and, and all of a sudden

this was very much just...

someone was obsessed with

me, pretending to be me,

my girlfriend, coming after

my friend, stolen my demos.

I feel like I'm out here

searching for answers,

um... like, defending

myself alone.

And it's not her fault,

like, I don't mean alone

'cause she's,

like, abandoned me.

It's just like what

is she gonna do here?

I just felt like a burden

on everybody around me

and I just was like,

"Please make it stop."

So when we got as far as we

could in the investigation,

we did go to the police.

There was an officer that we

had dealt with in the past

who advised us on...

you know, situations that had

come up with fans, obsessive fans.

He believed that we didn't

have enough at that point

to, you know, pursue

criminal charges.

The next step was to

secure... our world.

So, we brought in this

cybersecurity expert

to look into all the

information we had

and help us figure out who

was pretending to be me.

We quickly were

able to establish

that our manager's iDisk,

like, where they stored a lot of

documentation and information about us

that, that it had been breached.

We started analyzing the materials

that Julie had shared with us,

trying to figure out

what was going on.

One of the items was a

forged tour document.

We got into the properties

of that document

and saw it had been

created by a person.

First name was Joanne

who was based in the UK.

And we quickly found a

MySpace page that existed

that was tied to a

student in the UK

that also listed Tegan and Sara

as one of her musical interests.

And so, we thought

that we found her.

Yay us, we, we found...

we found Fegan.

So, we believe we have this

case solved essentially

within the first weekend.

So, we're high-fiving ourselves.

We're, we're detectives.

We've got this basic trail

of evidence leading us

to Joanne in the UK,

and then a few days later

on Wednesday, May 25th,

we got another email

that shook us again.

- This is from Jenny.

- The mom.

"I'm writing in regards to

some very sinister things

"that have been going on.

"For the past week, my

daughter's been receiving emails

"from websites canceling accounts

that she has not created.

"Yesterday afternoon,

she received an email

from a MobileMe address."

And that's the email that

Fake Tegan's been using

all along with Julie.

Yes, and the email says,

"Your f*cked, sorry."

- I'll never forget that line.

- "You're" spelled, Y-O-U-R.

- To boot.

- Yeah.

We felt the same way at the

time. We were all f*cked.

Yeah, we all felt very

f*cked at this point.

Oh, and it continues.

This is what points us in a different

direction for the first time.

The first appearance... of Mark.

This email purported to say

that her daughter Joanne had been

the victim of identity theft.

That it was perpetrated

by this guy, Mark,

who was based in

the US, in Maine.

And so, for the first time

we're hearing another name

after we thought we had Joanne,

all of a sudden it's pointing to,

to Mark, a man who is American.

Never forget reading

that email and thinking,

"Oh, my gosh, we are in a very

crazy tangled web right now."

It wasn't outta the question

that it could be a guy

doing this, in fact.

- Yeah.

- But this again made us worried,

because we also thought,

"Where is this gonna end up?

Is this a predator situation?"

And so, we suddenly had

two possible culprits now,

and so, we decided to issue

cease and desist letters

to both Joanne and, and Mark.

This is when I just

started absolutely...

having my mind blown,

was we received an email

from a lawyer in the UK

saying that that email that we

thought was from Jenny was not.

So, who sent that?

"Although my client's

mother is called Jenny,

"she was not responsible

for sending the email

received by your client

managers on May 25th."

Is this all a ruse?

Is the law... UK lawyer fake?

Is Joanne doing

this whole thing?

Is she the ringleader?

That was my... my mind exploded

and I said, "We know nothing.

"We've been outfoxed, I'm

in a Sandra Bullock movie,

The Net."

I don't know that we

understood what was happening.

I mean, quite honestly,

after speaking to the police

and then our lawyers...

you know, we just tossed a ton

of cease and desists out there

and hoped for the best.

Honestly, I feel like

we all were so f*cked.

I really blamed myself and

I really felt responsible.

And I do have to

consistently remind myself

that when this all started,

I was really young

and social media was young.

Right outta high school

we made a website

and put an email address at it.

I worked at a coffee

shop in the mornings

and then in the afternoon

I would answer emails,

and that was my first

interaction with the Internet.

Tegan and Sara, we have to remember

were way ahead of the curve

on social media and

interacting with their fans

and creating meaning

between their fans.

I was more of the

extrovert of the band.

I was very out there, I was

very personable with fans.

Always walking the lineup

outside of the venue,

standing at merch

to talk to people.

I-I never said no to taking

photos or signing things

or making a video saying "Happy

Birthday" to your cousin.

- Like, that was me.

- People from Dublin.

Like, I had opened

the door too wide

and made it really believable

that this person could be me.

Tegan and I at the time,

it wasn't that we didn't see eye to

eye about our fan base in general.

We loved our fan base,

we loved touring.

But I think the way that we learned

to manage the downside of fame

and the downside of, um,

success was different.

Tegan really leaned into it.

She felt really like

she owed it to the fans.

Like, "It's fine." You know?

Um, "I'll go out, I'll-I'll do

it tonight, Sara, don't worry.

I'll go sign for two hours

next to the tour bus."

I think everyone around

me was kind of like,

"Well, you're pretty

open, you know,

you're pretty friendly

with everybody."

And I thought that that was...

that's something about

me that was, like, good.

And then Fegan came along

and I was like, "This

is a bad thing about me.

"This exposes me, this

makes me vulnerable.

"This made our whole

organization vulnerable.

This hurt so many people and so

now I can't do that anymore."

They pulled back big time,

Sara especially, but Tegan too.

This was also

leading into the era

of where they took another

big leap in their popularity

and it's, like, an

inverse relationship.

Like, the more fans you have,

the less ability you have to

be able to connect with them.

We immediately introduced

VIP, you know, ticketing.

So, there was no more

going out to merch table,

no more standing in front

of the buses signing things,

no more walking the, the lineup.

Like, I just created more of a

formal process to, to, to connect.

We had their names,

their email addresses,

there was a photo of

each person that met us.

It was just more controlled.

And they were mad,

like, they were upset.

It really hurt their feelings.

It was kind of a hard

time to be a fan,

as someone who had been

around for a while.

It felt like they were

trying to go somewhere

that we weren't

going to fit anymore.

This was the fan night at the

recording studio in Vancouver.

Yeah. It's, it's funny,

'cause a lot of these people,

these are people who flew

in from other, other cities

but they're like so

recognizable to us,

'cause they were usually the people

who were in the front row at concerts.

Yeah, I threw this photo in,

because, like, as much as

this was a very stressful time

and a time of so much change

and violation in a lot of ways,

it was also, like,

a really fun time.

Please welcome back to the

program Tegan and Sara.

All I wanna get is

A little bit closer

All I wanna know is

Can you come a

little closer?

Here comes the breath before

we get a little bit closer

- We started to do Late Night.

- Mm-hmm.

We did Letterman,

like, we did Jay Leno.

We'd done a bookstore event,

signing for hundreds of fans

and we'd had armed security.

It was a different time.

We were entering

a different time.

There was so much heat on

us, it was just different.

It's not just all physical

I'm the type who won't

get oh, so critical

We saw our star rising,

it was just meteoric.

Thank you to all the

fans who have stood by us

through all of our

different incarnations.

I won't treat you like

you're oh, so typical

All I want to get is

A little bit closer

Thanks very much you guys.

It was crazy and there

was so much going on,

but there was also

an influx of wild,

obsessive, unwell,

stalker-y intrusive

stuff that was happening.

Our videos would leak online two

nights before they premiered.

Our record leaked online 24

hours before it came out.

Everything we would

get in our heads

and be like, "Is it Fake Tegan?"

But it wasn't until

October of 2013

that it became a

focus again for us.

I was out for dinner

with a bunch of friends,

one of whom Rene, her

account had been hacked.

That night, I was giving

an update about Fegan

as I was sort of recounting

where we had gotten

with the, the Fake Tegan thing.

The big thing being, like,

there were multiple fans

who'd been talking with Fegan

for years, exchanging emails,

photos, like, access, like, you

know, they really proved they were me

and Rene just got, like, the

funniest look on her face.

And her and her then girlfriend,

they kinda kept looking at each...

I mean, it was clear something was

happening for them in their head.

It was like a light

bulb went off.

And she stopped

me and she said...

like, "It's so crazy

what you're saying.

"Like, Steph's

been telling people

that you've been having a

secret relationship for years."

Steph was someone we both

knew in the Vancouver scene.

My mind was blown.

It was a... just a

awful moment, you know?

I just remember my

face, like, burning.

This wasn't just a random

person, this was a person I knew

through multiple groups of

friends who I'd socialized with,

who I'd gone out for

coffee with a couple times,

who worked at the

bar I hung out at.

I was like, what a weird tale.

I hadn't talked to her in years

and I was like, "Oh, my God."

And I just immediately went

home and emailed my management

and said, "I think this

is, I think this is Fegan.

I think Fegan's back and I

think that they're in my email."

I'm told that I was

previously being referred to

as Steph as nobody was sure

if I was gonna be a

part of this project.

My name's actually JT and

I'm a Vancouver musician.

How do you feel

about the name Steph

that I picked out for you?

I am horrified.

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta,

partially in a group home.

My mom ended up giving us

away to social services.

Once you put your

kids in the system,

you pretty much

can't get them back.

Music for me was like the

one thing that made sense.

That was the only place

that I could truly express

what I was feeling

in the moment.

And it was, like, safe.

As a young person when I

first moved to Vancouver,

like, I started working at the

only l*sbian bar that was here,

just, like, working the door for,

like, extra money on the weekends.

It was definitely one

of my first instances

of a real community.

It felt like I finally

found, like, my people

and, like, my space on

this earth, you know?

One day, my friend texted me...

"Tegan's coming over for dinner.

"I know that you mentioned

that you liked her

and I think you

guys would vibe."

At the time, Tegan and Sara,

they were like a

local l*sbian band,

and I found that interesting.

So, I, like, went over there

and I all, but pretty much

ignored her, to be honest,

because, like, I'm not very

good in, like, situations

like that where somebody's

trying to, like,

force me to meet somebody.

But later on I got a text

from Tegan being like,

"Hey, like, let's connect and,

like, hang out or something."

And so was the vibe friendly

or sort of flirty? Like...

I... Like, at first, like,

the first time that we met,

it was, like, just,

like, really friendly.

It was nice, it was... it

felt normal, like, and chill

and, like, we had,

like, good conversation.

She was really doing what I wanted

to do, you know what I mean?

Like, playing music and, like,

traveling around doing it

and I was like, "Oh,

that's, like, really cool."

So, it felt really

grown up to me.

Thank you very much.

How would you keep in touch

while Tegan was on the road?

Back then it was just, like, more,

like, common to, like, send emails

to people than it was

to, like, text a lot.

They were basically

letters to each other.

At some point, there was a

natural break in the conversation

where she was, like, on tour,

and I was doing lots of

music stuff and just busy.

So, you know,

eventually I reached out

and was just like,

"Hey, like, what's up?

Like, haven't heard

from you in a while."

I got an email back saying

that it was no longer the

email that she was using.

She also emailed me a

different phone number

to contact them with

and I just figured their

phone number changed.

It didn't seem very,

like, weird to me.

The emails definitely

emulated the same vibe,

the same, uh, typing

style, um, everything.

Like, so it didn't set off

any red flags inside me.

The emails did ramp up

to being, like, less than

really full letters anymore.

It was more like a

text message style.

In my mind I just figured,

like, that seems normal

because, like, when you start,

like, talking to somebody like that,

like, it just ends up being

more frequent, you know?

So, even, like, that didn't

really feel strange at the time.

I would say when it

turned, to, like, sexual,

it caught me off guard for sure.

But, I didn't really

think twice about it.

In my mind, I was

given the green light,

um, and I didn't

need anything more.

I don't think it

felt romantic at all.

No, it felt more... just sexual.

At this stage, I

remember, like, eventually

just being really annoyed

that we hadn't met up.

'Cause I had seen

she was in Vancouver.

So, I got a little bit more bold

and I was like, "Why

aren't we meeting up?"

And basically being,

like, the ultimatum,

like, "If you don't show up,

I'm, like, not interested

in continuing to talk to you

anymore because this is insane."

Ultimatum was made and then

Tegan didn't show up, you know?

And then, the... like, there was

no explanation given at this point

and I was just

like, "Listen, like,

"I'm, like, done having this,

like, conversation back and forth.

This is doing nothing for me."

I'm not gonna continue

to talk to a ghost.

Not long after that happened,

Piers, which was Tegan's

management at the time,

left me a voicemail.

It more or less said, "We're in the middle

of this investigation about somebody

who's hacking Tegan's email."

Hearing that voicemail sent

chills through my body.

I got in touch with

her and did a call

and started exchanging emails

much like we had done with Julie,

and, uh, there was again, yeah,

there was direct evidence

that this, you know,

this person had been

tricked by someone.

But, uh, Steph became

increasingly unconvinced

that I was on her side and

that we were all victims.

The most shocking twist

was Steph was like,

"No, this is Tegan,

I know it's Tegan."

She said, "I believe you're

protecting your client.

"Your client is demented

"and I've hired a

private investigator.

They've concluded this

really was your client."

And sort of, "Until you

can prove otherwise,

I'm sticking by it."

You had very little doubt that

it wasn't Tegan the whole time.

Yeah, at that time, of

course, I didn't, like,

I didn't have the

foresight that I do now.

Why did you say that

you had hired a PI?

Um, at the time, like, I felt

like I had to have something.

Like, she had somebody

having her back

and I essentially felt alone,

I didn't have

anybody on my side.

So, like, at the time I'm a

young dumb kid who was like,

"I'm gonna say that I have

a private investigator.

"So, maybe that, like,

if there is something

"that they're, like,

trying to hold back,

maybe they'll just

freakin', like, say it."

I felt very small, so,

what are you gonna do?

You have to fight.

Tegan and I knew each

other in real life.

She never reached out.

She never said, "I'm sorry."

She never gave me her

side of the story.

The real human response

to something like that,

no matter who you are, is to

make sure the other person

who was involved in the

wreck of this mess is okay.

Nobody made sure I was okay.

In 2014, JT was

a stranger to me.

We hadn't physically seen each

other in five or six years.

And then, within two weeks

of finding out about JT,

JT was online talking sh*t

and saying I was a horrible

person and coming after me.

Obviously, that made us all very

reluctant to reach out to JT.

After that, a lot of people

didn't wanna be around me,

because Vancouver's a small

town and everybody talks.

Music is a small

town, everybody talks.

It doesn't matter where you are.

A lot of people who I

have never met in my life,

meeting for the first

time knew about this sh*t.

They go, "Oh, you are JT."

And I knew exactly what that meant

and I'd be like, "Oh, great, cool."

Like, music spaces became

uncomfortable for me.

I didn't wanna be

even in q*eer spaces.

I still don't wanna

be in q*eer spaces,

'cause I could feel people's

conversations and their body language

and their energy change

when I entered a room.

Like, do I wanna be in a

space where I can feel people

actively feeling

uncomfortable around me

because they think I'm a

very, like, weird person

who makes up crazy

stories and is a liar?

No. So, I stopped

going anywhere.

I feel awful for JT.

I feel terrible,

this has haunted her.

She felt, it's clear

to me, embarrassed

and violated by this experience.

But during the

course of that time,

my relationship with

Lindsey... dissolved,

and my mum's sister was dying

and this Fake Tegan

thing had come up again

and it just felt so horrible.

It was just really

very overwhelming.

And I believe in my heart

that even if at that time

I went and talked to her, she would've

just been like, "You're lying."

We're victims of

the same person.

And it's hung over both of us.

Right from the beginning

there was sort of like,

suspicion on, on the people

in our lives, you know?

Mm-hmm.

I was under the

impression based on

how much personal information

that they had, that...

It was someone we knew.

Well, someone we knew

or someone you had told

really personal things

about me and Mom,

and, and I remember thinking,

um, the only, only way that

somebody would know any of that

was if they either knew you

or they were like

directly in your email.

- Right.

- Like, actually in your email.

Because the only way they

would know about our...

like, mom having cancer

or who I was dating,

like, those kinds of things,

to me that felt like

casual conversation.

But when I actually went through

and read some of the conversation

between Fegan and Julie,

I realized that they

didn't know anything.

It was, like, more, like,

headline information.

Yeah.

And so, that is when I

realized that this was a fan

talking to other fans and that

these people did not know us.

Tegan and Sara fan base

is so f*ck' dope.

I-I know Tegan and Sara fans

who got a passport explicitly

so they could go and travel

with the friends they

met through our fan base.

People who hadn't left their house

to go see a concert in a decade,

who befriended people

through message boards

and then decided they were

brave enough to go to a concert.

I know people who've

gotten married

because they met at our

shows or on message boards.

But you get to a certain size

and a certain part of your

fan base gets so intense,

they ruin it for everybody else.

With music, you

can really project

your own storyline onto a song

and you can really believe

that the lyrics understand you.

It gives people a lot of

room to form these ideas

about the artist

based on their music.

It's easy to lose

sight of the fact that

that is a tiny fraction

of what a person's about.

You know, in these days they're

talking about parasocial relationships.

Like, people really thought

that they knew Tegan and Sara.

It's a trope, you know,

to be in an audience

and to be convinced that the

person on stage is looking at you

and the person next to you thinks

that they're looking at them too.

There's a need to be validated

that the artist knows you exist.

I know a lot of...

q*eer famous people

and so a common thing

we all talk about

is that there's these

awful toxic message boards

where the people who seem to love

and be obsessed with you the most,

are the most cruel

and mean and shitty.

They were breeding

grounds for obsession.

"We want more, we need

more, it's not enough."

"Why don't they come and stand outside?

Why don't they talk to us longer?"

"Why don't they tell us

more about their lives?"

But they always have so

much information about you

and you're like, "Who the f*ck?"

Tegan and Sara fans

were dedicated.

What it felt like to me was

that they did not like me,

and they wanted to

date my girlfriend.

I didn't understand how these

people, like, knew things about me,

like, personal stuff.

I already felt really

protective over my girlfriend,

who was a total

normie, who was like,

"Why are your fans, like,

posting my dad's home address

on the ZetaBoards or whatever?"

And I was like, "I don't know."

Like, I don't know

how to explain this.

It was so weird to me.

It was easy to joke about

it or laugh about it,

but at some point

it really hurt.

Unverified information

could really be asserted

as if it was

accurate and spread,

and misinformation could

spread really easily.

Some of this is because

the Internet, you know,

depersonalizes things and

we see people as avatars,

and we see ourselves as being

able to hide behind a handle.

And it's easy to forget

that there's a real person

who's gonna read that sentence

who might be genuinely

frightened by it.

People were cruel

about our girlfriends,

mean about our friends,

shitty about us.

It's weird, fan

culture is so strange.

Behaviors that fans engage in

and support amongst each

other are on a spectrum

that slide into really

dysfunctional behavior really fast.

The competitiveness in fan

groups, the entitlement,

the possessiveness, the elitism.

But I've been, like, pinched,

kissed, f*ndled, grabbed, carried,

trying to carry me

outta the venue.

People have gotten on stage and

bear hugged Sara, taken her down.

I've been followed home.

We've driven around for an hour before

to lose people on our way to hotels,

I've had people

show up at my hotel.

Those barricades

and security people

you see at venues, you know,

like, they're there for a reason.

There were a lot of fans

who wanted to be part of,

who wanted a piece

of Tegan and Sara.

Fan culture has existed

for hundreds of years.

Stay where you are.

Famously, when Sherlock

Holmes was k*lled off...

people protested in the streets.

You know, in pop

music with fan armies

where they will dox

people and threaten people

because they

expressed an opinion

that the group decides

together is unacceptable.

And the term, "stan" as a

description of superfans

who've gone a little too far

is thought to be, uh, an

amalgam of "stalker" and "fans"

"stan."

People might not

realize that "stan"

is the Eminem song, Stan.

Dear Slim, I wrote you,

but you still ain't callin'

I left my cell, my pager and

my home phone at the bottom

I sent two letters

back in autumn

You must notve got em...

It tells the story

of a fan named Stan

who writes Eminem a

series of letters.

He's so outraged that Eminem's

not responding to him,

that he murders his girlfriend.

And now, when you're proclaiming

yourself the best fan,

you call yourself a stan.

You're proud to be a stan.

That's deranged.

In any artist's fandom,

the vast majority of

people are casual fans.

But there's no denying that

there's a portion of fans

who are, you know, what you

might call pathological,

people who are dangerous.

He told the officer he will do

whatever it takes to

be with Katy Perry.

Put your hands on the wall.

- -Hi. How's it going?

- Hi. Good, how are you?

- I'm Tegan.

- I'm Jacqi.

Nice to meet you.

- I love your overalls.

- Thank you.

A few weeks ago your

producers on this documentary

reached out to me.

They had the email that I

sent your management back then

about this whole situation

and the Fake Tegan,

I wanted to just let you know

the information that I had.

Whoa.

I didn't have the

whole conversation,

but these were the

initial texts. Very...

Okay. Okay, so this is the

first, this is the first text.

- That's right.

- "Fantastic job."

"I could have the wrong

number. Who's this?"

Good. Play coy. I like it.

"This is Tegan, do I know you?"

So when Piers, our

manager, reached out

and said that it wasn't me,

did you ever reach

out to Fegan again?

Like, did you reach out

and say like, the jig's up?

I didn't text them right away.

I kind of just like, let it go.

It was like, "I wanna bury this

'cause this is weird and embarrassing

and I don't wanna think

about it anymore."

Yeah, it's horrible.

And then in 2014 on Tumblr,

this page popped

up out of nowhere.

Gained a lot of attention.

- It was just one picture of your face.

- Yeah.

And, like, a couch

in the background.

It said something like,

"10:00 a.m. tomorrow,

"I'm releasing a

lot of information

that you're gonna wanna

know about Tegan."

- Damn.

- There's, like, a countdown.

So, everyone was like, "What? What's

going on? Who is this person?"

And then the next

day at 10:00 a.m.

they dropped all of these

demos that were unreleased,

pictures of you that

seemed pretty personal.

They said that you had a relationship

with them for three years.

I was immediately suspicious.

So, I DM'd them.

Their name was Tara,

and we started talking.

It's a fact-finding

mission at this point.

Yeah. I just said, "I have also

been in contact with this number.

And then management called me

and said that it wasn't Tegan."

And they instantly were like,

"That's a lie, that's a cover-up."

We started talking

about their experience

and their relationship with you.

They told me they had run a fan

fiction account about you and Sara,

and you were on the

fan fiction account.

They were saying that

you were a monster

and you were a*usive

and you had played them

and that you were just abusing

all of your underage fans.

They wanted revenge and justice.

So, they had the intention

of going to the show

to stare you down

and intimidate you.

- That's f*cking creepy.

- Yeah.

So, we're going back

and forth for a bit.

And then I got this

whole long message

from this moderator on a

Tegan and Sara chat site

about all of this awful stuff

that this person used to do.

"This insane diabolical

b*tch started a w*r with me

"and my friend about three years

ago after an encounter on .ca.

"She was the creator of the

original Quincest LiveJournal,

"which was open to the public

and was incredibly offensive,

and, I mean, really bad."

There were these message

boards with incest

fan fiction sexualizing us.

It was gross.

"I called her out on it, putting

pressure on her to delete it

"or at least make it private.

"She flipped out, going from

a previously very likable

"and intelligent poster on .ca

to someone with multiple IPs,

"emails and personalities.

She's diabolically

good at lying."

Yeesh.

That's, um, that's rough.

And I just always go back to the

email exchange with our management

where this person

went from being like,

"I'll help you find Fegan,"

to accusing me and being really

aggressive and, and angry.

Like, all of it feels

very, very strange.

Tara is a person that

reached out to me.

I... Probably in response to one

of my angry tweets about Tegan

saying that they also received some

sort of, like, attention from Tegan.

They tried to be really

friendly with me.

It felt like they were

trying to connect with me

and be like, "Oh, the same

thing is happening to me."

And... But something

felt weird about it,

because they kept on trying to

bring Tegan up all the time.

They became very

aggressive very fast

and tried to, like,

message me a lot.

It's like they wanted

to be a part of my life.

I could feel that very much.

And I eventually had

to just say like,

"Hey, stop messaging

me about this.

"I literally don't

wanna think about it.

Like, it's over, f*ck off."

I remember meeting them at

the Newport Folk Festival.

They seemed like

a fan and curious

and not dangerous.

It was a student.

I was nice. You

know, professional.

But she became unstoppable.

And then I got a call

from her and they said,

"I need you to know that Tegan

"has been having

relationships with fans,

multiple fans for years."

I mean, my initial reaction

was like, "No, she wasn't."

We were, like, breaking up

at this point, you know?

This person was, like,

thinking that they had done it.

They had told me this stuff

and then we were breaking up.

So, I was like, "Oh,

God, really?" You know?

I did not wanna engage

with this person.

Breakups are painful,

but this was just wild.

Whether they knew or not

that we were breaking up,

it was unbelievably cruel and

shitty thing to do to Lindsey.

It's just salt in

the wound, you know?

It was f*cked up, like, I was

like, "This is really f*cked up.

"This is, like, a real

breach of privacy.

Like get a f*ck'

life," you know?

At one point, I emailed

the Fake Tegan email

and it kicked back

and in the code it

actually said Tara's name.

So, I messaged Tara and said,

"Hey, like, is this serious?

"Has this, like,

always been you?

This is complete insanity."

"I know it was you

this whole time.

"I tried sending

an email to Tegan

"and it came up with

an error message

"that my email got rejected

"and in the details had an

email with your name in it.

"That's too much of a

coincidence to not be true.

"And you also just always

know the correct answer

"to why her emails

weren't traced back

"to the right places, et cetera.

"Because you did it all.

"You don't have a

job, so it makes sense

"as to why you're always available

to talk and make up stories.

"This is just so sick.

"I can't believe anyone would

spend their time doing this.

"I'm sending over

everything I have to Piers.

"So enjoy, 'cause you'll

probably be in some legal trouble

for impersonating someone."

I don't know why this

person did what they did,

but it turned my

life upside down.

There's this big email

that I saw from Jclaiming that she

received metadata

that pointed the

finger at Tara. Um...

And we... And we

have that email?

So, we have the email

of JT accusing Tara,

saying, "I knew it was you,"

but once I asked JT about that

"bounce back" in the metadata,

um, we haven't been

able to find that.

So, that's, like, it...

had we... had we had that

it would be an open

and shut case, right?

But we only have Jaccusing Tara with this.

But Tara was in contact with

Jacqi, JT, Lindsey, Jaime,

management, and Jana.

We did find a connection

between Tara and Julie.

It's very weird to draw

the web of all the people

that this person reached out to.

This person always lived

in Portland, Maine.

Mark, the suspect number two,

was traced back to Maine.

And you have never

lived in Maine.

Certainly very

suspicious, for sure.

Shall we call that

the Maine Train?

All this paints a portrait

of somebody who is obsessive.

They got kicked off of forums

for inappropriate behavior.

They were in touch

with the other victims.

And so, after a year

and a half of this

and, like, taking in

all this information,

this is the person

it's led us to,

but it's circumstantial

evidence.

I mean, it would be amazing if we

had a piece of ev... like, evidence

that really 100% was

just like, "This is it."

But there's holes that make me

feel like maybe it's not them.

If you ever find out

who the Fegan was,

I really would like to know why

and what I would

like to say to them,

I'm torn between, "f*ck you for what

you did to Tegan and the rest of us."

And I just want

this person to know

that it wasn't victimless,

you did hurt people.

Nothing that they could say

would make anything what

they did correct or right.

Like, nothing could change that.

And now you can

close the eyebrow

and turn off the camera.

Can we drop the MIACs?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, frame right. Yeah.

- Okay.

Exactly, that's a little better,

'cause now I can't really...

Yeah.

- Hey, Erin.

- Yeah?

I'm really sorry to interrupt.

We just got a text from Tara.

Um...

They said, "I've

thought about it more

"and I'm not really

interested in being a tool

"in making someone

else more money

"without any personal

payout for myself,

"especially when I'm being

asked to reopen old scars.

"If Tegan already knew

how traumatic this was

"for the victims

of this nightmare,

"then asking them to unearth

ancient and painful history

is just exploitative

and selfish."

So, do we think...

Do we think that means

they will not be coming?

I think they're telling us

that they're not going to come.

- Hi, can you hear me?

- Yeah.

So we are all set up in Maine.

And guess who is not here?

Your interviewee?

That's correct.

But I also feel very

lured here, right?

Hmm.

This person waited

until you arrived

to say, "Oh, by the way, uh, I

don't think I wanna do this,"

because they want

control over you

and they wanna manipulate you

and perhaps extract

things from you.

I think there's a

sense of satisfaction

in knowing that

they, like, got us.

Hey, it's Erin.

I have Tegan on the other line,

I'm gonna merge for a sec, okay?

Hello.

Well, I just wanna first

say thank you so much

for getting on a call with us.

I know this is deeply weird

and, um, I appreciate...

I hope now that we've verified it's

us, that you feel comfortable...

Totally. Well,

if it's possible

for me personally, I mean,

I have an email from you in 2014

telling my management,

Piers, that you...

had evidence that you

knew who Fake Tegan was.

We never got that evidence,

and I think that's where

I would love to start,

if, if you remember

anything from that time.

So, I mean, I'll jump in.

You know, you are somebody that,

um, you told me were a...

was a victim of Fake Tegan.

I need to take

that at face value.

But I've been looking at this

case for a year and a half.

I've spoken to a

bunch of victims.

Part of the thing

that kept coming up is

they would have this sort

of dynamic with Fake Tegan

and then you would

actually appear

trying to talk about

the relationship.

I, I hear that, um, it's not

what it felt like to them.

Also, every single

victim that we spoke to

did send us the messages

in which they were

talking to Fake Tegan.

And it was, to me, suspicious

that you did not send anything.

Um, I don't, 'cause

I was hacked twice

and had to abandon my

email in a panicked frenzy.

One of the origins of your

love of the band was the,

like, the incest fan fiction.

Is that something that you

sort of fully took part in?

Yes.

There are coincidences and

oddities to where you were

and the way that

you reached out.

You know, like, your behavior

has left me feeling very...

convinced that

something's not right.

So, you have never

hacked Tegan's email

in any way whatsoever?

So, like you feel that you

are a victim of Fake Tegan?

I mean, you seem like you were

profoundly affected by this.

Yes.

Okay.

If I wanted to have

relationships and affairs

and friendships with all of these

people, why wouldn't I just do it?

But why? I make friends

with people all the time.

Why would I be hiding my

friendships with people?

I mean, a lot of these

victims were just friends.

No one in my world

believes that this is real.

We were extremely

worried and distressed

for the people that were

talking to this person.

Just what do you remember about

this person contacting you?

What happened to you?

And why was it, why

was it traumatic?

Okay.

You're saying that that's what

drove you to reach out to Lindsey?

Like, at that point you had

been carrying on a relationship

with Fake Tegan

without feeling guilty.

But when, when

Tegan blew you off,

then you went in to sort of

f*ck up her relationship.

Like, that was sort

of the thinking.

Okay, okay.

I just acknowledge

that this has been hard

and I do appreciate you taking

the time and talking to me.

Maybe all these things don't

add up to you being Fake Tegan,

but you did things on the Internet

that are very easy to find,

that are extremely

aggressive towards me.

The incest page,

reaching out to Lindsey,

you built a Tumblr page to

out me as a horrible person

and release all my

personal information.

And some of your behaviors,

when you add all of that up,

have made you a person that is

extremely worrisome to us, you know?

You attempted to have a...

um, you know, physical

run-in with me at the show.

And you wanted to

publicly destroy me,

you wanted to

personally destroy me.

You wanted to accuse

me and my management...

Excuse me?

Why do you think that... Why do

you think that it didn't affect me?

Why did you think it

doesn't affect me?

How could this not affect me?

How could... How could be,

like, violated like this?

Of course it affected me.

I've never had a call like that.

I... It just was really

different than what I expected.

To me, the emotional depth of

them exploring their feelings

and what happened

feels genuine to me.

It doesn't rule out

the fact that they did

some really f*ck'

shitty stuff to me.

Yeah.

But I feel like Tara's

response to certain questions,

especially the ones where we

were just asking to hear about

their experience,

it felt like...

it felt real to me.

This is somebody who had a

relationship with Fake Tegan,

feels totally f*cked over,

got conned and is pissed.

So, I do not think

Tara is Fegan.

I don't think we've found Fegan.

I went into the call with

a lot of feelings about

that this was the

person. I flew to Maine,

I got ready to interview them.

They ghosted at the last second.

For me doing this

for a long time,

it's incredibly suspicious.

And so, uh...

But,

I think you're right.

Yes, we would like to

find out who did it,

but it's also,

it's so much more,

it's like what this does to

people and the dehumanization,

and when, when Tara was like,

"This didn't affect you.

How could this

have affected you?"

That to me encapsulated

everything.

It's like, of course,

it affected you,

but nobody thinks of you as

a person that can be hurt.

Yeah.

The truth is messy, the

truth is complicated.

And this is the

truth of this project

that there were bad actors and

Fegan was just one of them.

- Hey.

- Hi.

You made it.

How's it going?

I'm feeling weird.

- Yeah, it's, uh, very unnatural.

- Yeah.

Alright, whenever

you're ready, JT.

Erin was asking about

the feeling I get,

like, just, like, by

hearing your name.

I wouldn't even say your

name for the longest time.

Yeah.

I have everything of your

social media's blocked

- on everything I possibly could.

- Yeah.

I was, like, at the

grocery store, you know,

music's playing and then

one of your songs comes on

and I'm immediately,

like, full-body triggered,

like, feeling sick,

and it sucks, and I don't,

like, wanna feel like that.

You're not alone.

I mean, I've heard that from

other victims of, of Fegan.

It distorts your relationship

to me, the music, you know?

- I understand that.

- Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Is part of why you

agreed to do this

is because you're hoping, like, that

people will see this and realize,

like, you were, like...

that Fake Tegan is real?

Like, that this happened to you,

that you were tricked and that...

Yeah.

You really weren't

making it up? Like...

It feels like it's just

haunting me and I'm, like,

wondering what I f*cking did in

my past life to deserve this.

It's not your fault,

you don't deserve it.

It's not your fault.

It haunts me too.

I just feel very stupid.

And I'm so sorry that you

feel that way, I hate that.

Are you angry with me?

No. No, not at all.

Was there a time where...

when you were angry with me?

No, there was a time where

I was very scared of you.

That's unfortunate.

I don't think I'm a

very scary person.

I was just really f*cking mad.

I get the sense you feel I'm

responsible somehow still.

The thing of it is, the

reason why there's still

an underlining anger

is because I can't...

Because the story was you,

and then there was the

whatever the f*ck happened,

I can't separate

you from the story.

Yeah, I really get that.

And...

I don't think I understood

that as much as I do now.

I hope that I can move on, like,

- but I have to untangle the whole thing...

- Yes. Yeah.

The story from you

and I need to, like,

keep on doing that.

- But I am trying.

- Mm-hmm.

The troubling question is

that we want to believe

we are not like the

people who would do this,

or we are not like the people

who would be gullible

enough to believe this.

But the truth is, is that

we're all a lot more similar

and I think that makes all

of us really uncomfortable.

Do you feel like this film has

been disruptive to your life?

I definitely... have had moments

and have been honest about this,

that I've regretted

opening this all up again,

starting this all over again.

- Hi, how's it going?

- Hi.

- Good, how are you?

- I'm Tegan.

It's just each time I talk

to a new Fake Tegan victim...

Hi.

Hi.

I understand that it's necessary

and even the hardest parts...

Okay, I'm ready.

Feel important.

What have been the

hardest moments for you?

I think the hardest

moment's now.

Yeah, because I don't think

it's gonna stop, you know? I...

What's to stop that this could just

encourage a new generation of Fake Tegans?

And, and not even Fake

Tegan, like, just anyone.

We're all susceptible

to this, you know?

Fake Tegan made me a

less trusting person.

I'm really proud of the Tegan

and Sara community and the fans.

But fan culture is,

"I wanna know more.

I wanna know more,

I wanna know more."

It's insatiable because you

won't ever really know me...

unless you kidnap me

and get to know me.

No.

We're not gonna use that joke.

Horrific

All I wanna get is,

a little bit closer

All I wanna know is, can

you come a little closer?

Here comes the

breath before we get

A little bit closer

Here comes the rush

before we touch

Come a little closer

The doors are open, the

wind is really blowing

The night sky is

changing overhead

It's not just all physical

I'm the type who won't

get oh, so critical

So let's make

things physical

I won't treat you like

you're oh, so typical

I won't treat you like

you're oh, so typical

All you think of lately

is getting underneath me

All I dream of lately

Is how to get

you underneath me

Here comes the

heat before we meet

A little bit closer

Here comes the spark

before the dark

Come a little closer

The lights are off and

the sun is finally setting

The night sky is

changing overhead

It's not just all physical

I'm the type who won't

get oh, so critical

So let's make

things physical

I won't treat you like

you're oh, so typical

I want you close, I want you

I won't treat you

like you're typical

I want you close, I want you

I won't treat you

like you're typical

Here come the

dreams of you and me

Here come the dreams

Here come the

dreams of you and me

Here come the dreams

It's not just all physical

I'm the type who won't

get oh, so critical

So let's make

things physical

I won't treat you like

you're oh, so typical

I want you close, I want you

I won't treat you

like you're typical

I want you close, I want you

I won't treat you

like you're typical

I won't treat you

like you're typical

I won't treat you

like you're typical

All I wanna get is

A little bit closer