Mackenzie | Betrayal Weekly

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Speaker 7 I literally just saw red.

Speaker 7 I started crying and kept saying, I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
There's no way. There's no way.

Speaker 7 And the first thing I do is get my phone and I probably said, like, I fucking hate you or something like that.

Speaker 7 What she replies back is,

Speaker 7 where are you right now?

Speaker 7 Not, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Speaker 7 I can go to a buddy who I don't know. I cry.
First dances with dads, dead.

Speaker 1 That's Mackenzie. She's the kind of person who has a hard exterior, but is a big softy on the inside.

Speaker 7 I'm on the floor. I'm still a big baby.
I just love love.

Speaker 1 And she has a story unlike any we've ever heard. It starts as the story of two sisters, Mackenzie and her older sister, who were calling Lee.

Speaker 7 She was my very best friend. Shared a bedroom.
We would dance and sing to Backstreet Boys and Instinct.

Speaker 7 all the time.

Speaker 1 As kids, McKenzie and Lee did everything together.

Speaker 7 We were attached at the hip for a long time. She used to make me come to her sleepovers because she would get homesick.

Speaker 7 So me as an eight-year-old would be coming along to these like cool pre-teen sleepovers with all of her best friends.

Speaker 1 Even though McKenzie was three years younger than Lee.

Speaker 7 I was the bigger little sister, so I was taller than Lee. I acted like the older sibling.
So I would take care of her.

Speaker 1 For a while, Mackenzie tried to be just like her older sister.

Speaker 7 She had so many friends, and all of her friends were pretty, and she had so many guy friends, and so many guys liked her.

Speaker 7 So I just always wanted to be in her realm to see how does she do it because I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to connect with men. So I'm watching her with boys.

Speaker 7 I was, oh, I gotta watch my big sister.

Speaker 1 But as they grew up, Mackenzie became her own person.

Speaker 7 I was a pomboy. I don't want to wear a dress.

Speaker 7 I was very athletic and very good at softball.

Speaker 7 My goal at that point was I'm going to get a scholarship, go to school in the States, and then I wanted to try to get to the Olympics with Teen Canada.

Speaker 1 Softball became McKenzie's life. Her sister played too, but she didn't take it as seriously as McKenzie.

Speaker 7 She played high level, so she had tournaments and stuff, but she was a huge, huge partier in high school.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was three years younger. They were in different stages of their life.

Speaker 7 Lee's off getting drunk in a field somewhere, and I'm the one that's like, can I have $20 to go to the movies on Friday?

Speaker 1 Lee was cool, but she wasn't too cool to have her younger sister around.

Speaker 7 This is my cool sister. Like, she's graduated, and we're listening to Lose That by Eminem in the car and our Toyota Echo.

Speaker 1 After Lee graduated from high school, she moved in with her boyfriend.

Speaker 7 And then he cheated on her. So she ends up moving back home.

Speaker 1 It was the early 2000s, and Facebook was brand new. Everyone was navigating social media for the first time.

Speaker 7 And of course, Lee's pretty, so she had something upwards to like 2,000 friends. And I remember Lee came to me and was like, oh, I'm talking to this guy that added me on Facebook.

Speaker 1 Lee showed Mackenzie a photo of the guy who had reached out to her. His name was Ryan.

Speaker 7 He was very good looking and muscular, kind of a buzz cut, dark eyes, really nice smile, ripped, all that kind of stuff. When you're 19, turning 20, you're looking for.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't just about Ryan's looks. Lee had been sharing her writing on Facebook, and he had taken the time to read it.

Speaker 7 She's like, he messaged me saying he really clicked with my poetry and he really liked it.

Speaker 1 It was sweet. Mackenzie looked at Ryan's Facebook profile and noticed that they had a shared mutual friend, Lee's softball teammate, Amy.

Speaker 7 And I was like, oh, well, did you talk to Amy? And Lee, she's like, yeah, actually, she texted me and said, oh, how do you know Ryan?

Speaker 7 And obviously, Lee's like, well, I don't. He had me on Facebook.

Speaker 1 It was reassuring for Lee to talk to somebody that knew Ryan in real life.

Speaker 7 Amy's like, oh, when I was in Calgary, he was living there and we worked together for like a year and he's one of my really good friends. He's such a good guy.

Speaker 1 Lee and Ryan started talking. They got along really well and would spend hours each day messaging back and forth.

Speaker 1 Even though they lived in different cities, they found creative ways to have long distance dates. Within a few months,

Speaker 7 They are literally Facebook official. They both have it on their Facebook.

Speaker 1 In December of 2009, McKenzie was going through her first real breakup. Lee encouraged her to get back on the dating scene.

Speaker 7 Lee's like, oh, Ryan wants to talk to you. And I'm like, why does he want to talk to me? She's like, I don't know.
He says he has a cousin that you'd really like. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Ryan reached out to McKenzie to vouch for his cousin.

Speaker 7 You guys would really get along. He really likes baseball.
all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay, if you're vouching for him, Ryan's a great guy, so I'm gonna listen.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie decided to give this guy a shot. His name was Matt.
He and Ryan both lived on the east coast of Canada, which was far away from the sisters.

Speaker 7 So it wasn't like just get in the car and drive here. It was airplane, six-hour flight type of deal.

Speaker 1 After dating long distance for months, Ryan started planning his first trip to visit Lee.

Speaker 7 He was supposed to come Christmas Eve, so we were looking forward to meeting him. My parents were like, okay with him him staying here.

Speaker 7 But then four days before he messages Lee and tells her that he can't come.

Speaker 1 Ryan's mom had cancer and her health had started declining. He was no longer willing to miss Christmas with her.

Speaker 7 Lee is beside herself. She's absolutely heartbroken because this was going to be their first meeting.

Speaker 1 Ryan felt horrible for canceling the trip too.

Speaker 1 He had a special Christmas gift planned for Lee, and in order to make sure it got to her on time, he solicited the help of their mutual friend Amy.

Speaker 7 Christmas Eve rolls around and Amy shows up with this box, hands it to Lee, and it's a Bilde Bear.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 in the card, it says, because I can't be there, this is my replacement, like hug him and sleep with him.

Speaker 7 So that night on, she's sleeping with this bear every single night.

Speaker 1 As Lee and her boyfriend Ryan got more serious, Mackenzie was starting to develop a crush on his cousin Matt. He'd become a part of her daily life.

Speaker 7 He was always, you know, messaging me every morning, making sure I got up and pushing me to go to my practices and stuff like that. And then we would, we'd talk baseball because he was a Yankees fan.

Speaker 7 I'm a Blue Jays fan. So we would kind of chirp each other about baseball a lot.

Speaker 1 But Matt wanted their relationship to be deeper than just chatting about sports.

Speaker 7 It just kind of slowly turned into like him him kind of saying, I want to date you. I want to be with you.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie felt the same way, but she really wanted to meet him in person before they made things official.

Speaker 7 I am very big on face-to-face interaction. I need to have that connection before I can say we can be boyfriend and girlfriend type deal.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was cautious, but Matt was really making an effort. And that meant a lot to her.
Their jokes and sports banter turned to deeper conversations and a real connection.

Speaker 7 Validating my feelings and making sure I feel heard and he would call me babe and baby and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 Matt and Ryan hung out a lot and sent the girls photos of their adventures, hiking together, spending time with family, or just small moments in their daily routines.

Speaker 1 Their friend Amy was happy her matchmaking skills had been such a success.

Speaker 7 Amy

Speaker 7 is talking with Lee, sporadically checking in on how her and Ryan are doing and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 Plus, it was kind of fun for Mackenzie and Lee to be dating cousins.

Speaker 7 Me and Lee will say we're watching a movie and then we have Matt and Ryan pressing play on the same time.

Speaker 1 They'd watch rom-coms together. It was sweet, but Lee and Mackenzie were growing tired of the long distance.
They would try to plan visits with Matt and Ryan, but it never seemed to be the right time.

Speaker 7 It was just always, no, you know this. My mom's immune compromised.
You can't come here. There's no place for you to stay right now.
I'm trying to figure out stuff with my mom.

Speaker 7 I have classes too often. I'm going to be working too much.

Speaker 7 I'm like, holy shit, they have such a hard life. And then, wow, I'm such a bad person for trying to put my feelings first.

Speaker 1 Lee had never had an online relationship before. It was taking a toll on on her.

Speaker 7 It was endless of her drinking, coming home, and she's crying, and she's coming into my bedroom, and she's talking about, oh, she's fighting with Ryan, and it's her, you know, missing shifts at work.

Speaker 7 Her friends are now very few and far between. They don't believe that you can fall in love with somebody over the internet.
So Lee is now... At this point, you know, she's losing her best friend.

Speaker 7 She's losing her friend group, the people that she usually turns to.

Speaker 1 i'm now her best friend because i'm in a similar circumstance the whole situation brought the sisters closer together mckenzie was at a crossroads she was graduating high school and thinking about her future mckenzie had spent her whole life working towards a career as a professional softball player and now she was debating if that was the right choice I just kind of, I got to the point where I didn't want to be just, that's what my identity was, because my identity, that's all people associated me with.

Speaker 7 Mackenzie just plays softball. That's what she does.

Speaker 1 So Mackenzie made a hard decision. She decided not to go to college.

Speaker 7 I'm not going to take any of my scholarships.

Speaker 1 If she wasn't in school, she would need a job. When she was lost on what to do, Matt had an idea.

Speaker 7 Matt, let me know that Amy works for a construction company and she can probably get me a job.

Speaker 1 Amy worked in construction and Matt did too. He told Mackenzie more about how the industry worked.

Speaker 7 I was like, oh yeah, that's totally up my alley. Different every day.
You're going to different job sites and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, yeah, perfect.

Speaker 7 Matt says, hey, just give her a text and she can probably get you a job.

Speaker 1 She texted Amy and submitted her resume. Two weeks later, she was hired for the job.

Speaker 7 My first day, too, I was super nervous. Amy offered to come on a day off, introduced me to everybody that worked there.
They was like, wow, she's really down to earth. She's really chill.

Speaker 7 You know, she's a tomboy like me. Very easy to talk to, funny, that kind of stuff.
I can't believe she would go out of her way to try to make me feel comfortable. That's really nice of her.

Speaker 7 From that point on, we became best friends pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1 After graduating high school, McKenzie took a job in construction with a mutual friend named Amy.

Speaker 1 Amy had played softball in high school with Mackenzie's sister Lee, but the sisters also knew her through their long-distance boyfriends. And over time, Mackenzie's friendship with Amy grew.

Speaker 7 We worked together almost every day. She'd come over to our house a lot.
She was very funny and she was very outgoing and just easy to be around.

Speaker 7 She would come over. We'd watch Jersey Shore every Thursday together.
Jersey's, you know, Miss Bumps pushed up chapstick.

Speaker 7 It was the best and her and i like i could just be me and she was the same so we fed off each other you just have two friggin weird people together and that's a vibe

Speaker 1 amy never really dated anyone when mackenzie asked her about it she explained that it was because of her faith she's like i just I'm Christian and literally wearing a purity ring like Jonas Brothers now.

Speaker 7 Shout out to Jonas Brothers. And

Speaker 7 he,

Speaker 7 but she had a cross on. She was like, that's just how I was raised.

Speaker 1 But Mackenzie liked sharing her love life with Amy, especially because Amy knew her boyfriend.

Speaker 7 She was my kind of outlet being like, why is Matt being crazy today? I need you to talk to him. Or same with Lee.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie and Matt's relationship was steady, but Lee and Ryan were really struggling with the distance because Ryan still hadn't come to visit.

Speaker 7 Every other other day they're arguing, like, why aren't you coming here?

Speaker 7 And you know my mom's sick. You know I was in a car accident.
You know Matt's not doing well.

Speaker 7 It was very much telling, Lee, why are you making me feel bad when my life is in shambles and you're supposed to be supporting me? You're supposed to be my better half.

Speaker 1 For Mackenzie's 19th birthday, Lee and Amy decided to take her out to a bar to celebrate. But as soon as they got there,

Speaker 7 Lee is arguing with Ryan even on my birthday. They're BBMing each other.
He's getting mad at her that she's drinking, saying she's drinking too much. Amy's being super weird.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie chalked it up to the fact that Amy didn't drink.

Speaker 7 She's like, I need to leave. And I'm kind of like, we just got here.
I just had my second beer. She had left my birthday.
And then the whole night, Lee and Ryan are arguing.

Speaker 1 The relationship between Lee and Ryan was just plain unhealthy.

Speaker 7 Lee is now not going out with her friends. Her friends didn't get the online relationship, why she was adamant that she had to be with this man.
This was her be-all end-all.

Speaker 7 She's not leaving her room. I can hear her crying herself to sleep most nights.
I can hear she'll send videos to him of her crying and yelling and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie would talk to Amy about her and Lee's relationship issues, but often Amy would side with the guys.

Speaker 7 I'm at work and Amy's being weird and super

Speaker 7 angry. And I'm like, what is wrong? I understand Ryan's your best friend, but you don't need to involve yourself that much into their arguments.

Speaker 7 Would be talking with Matt and I would say something and it would piss him off. And sure enough, Amy's giving me the, you know, the cold shoulder.
And it just was like this cycle of toxicity.

Speaker 1 Amy couldn't help but get involved in their relationships, especially Lee and Ryan's.

Speaker 7 We would be on a drive and then Amy would just turn to me and be like, so your sister and Ryan are fighting. And I'm like, when are they not fighting?

Speaker 7 And she's like, yeah, what has your sister said about Ryan? Like, what does she feel? And I'm like, she's in love with him. I don't think it really matters.
Well, I think I think it does matter.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, well, it's not your relationships.

Speaker 7 I don't understand why you're asking this.

Speaker 7 Well,

Speaker 7 is she talking to any guys when she goes out? And I'm like,

Speaker 7 no, I don't see it. She's, well, you go with her sometimes.
You go to the bars. I'm like, um,

Speaker 7 I don't think it matters, Amy. Like, we're literally,

Speaker 7 we're going to get, we're going to stop living and we're getting slurpees and we're getting a $2 candy bag. We don't need to worry about this right now.

Speaker 1 It was weird how Amy would involve herself, but Mackenzie tried to ignore it.

Speaker 1 At this point in their friendship, it was 2010. A documentary came out that everybody was talking about.
Ryan recommended it to Lee.

Speaker 7 It's called catfish.

Speaker 7 And we never heard the term.

Speaker 1 These days, catfishing stories feel like a part of the zeitgeist, but back in 2010, this was a brand new concept.

Speaker 7 Facebook's fresh, out the gate. We all are kind of getting used to what's going on.
Instagram's not even out yet. You trust that everyone is who they say they are.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was curious about the catfish documentary.

Speaker 7 I had talked to Matt, and Matt's like, yeah, I watched it. It's a really good movie.
I think it's something you guys should watch to put your mind at ease about us.

Speaker 7 We have Amy then saying, oh, we can watch it together. So now it's me, Lee, and Amy, and we're watching Catfish together.
We're like, I couldn't even imagine if that happened to us.

Speaker 7 That would be devastating. Lee is just like, I'm so glad I found the love of my life that I'm going to marry and have kids with.
And I'm glad he told us to watch this movie together.

Speaker 7 I would be absolutely mortified if that ever happened to me.

Speaker 7 I can't believe he didn't see the songs.

Speaker 1 At first, it was fun that Mackenzie and Lee's boyfriends were cousins. and that their best friend Amy knew the guys too.
All of her favorite people knew each other.

Speaker 1 But as time went on, Mackenzie started to feel like she was stuck in the middle of a complicated web. As Lee's relationship with Ryan got worse, it became too much drama for Mackenzie.

Speaker 7 Lee's fighting with Ryan, and then Ryan's trying to talk to me because he wants me to, you know, calm her down. And then I have Matt talking to me, saying, This is really bad for Lee and Ryan.

Speaker 7 You need to help. And then I have freaking Amy also being like, Ryan told me they're fighting.
And I'm like, I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 1 So in January of 2011, McKenzie broke up with Matt. She told Lee that she needed space from the whole situation, especially her sister's toxic relationship.

Speaker 7 When I stopped talking to Matt, I think that was

Speaker 7 really, really hard on her because at this point, I just can't listen to it. And so now, you know, she's alone in this, essentially.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie saw the damage that Lee's relationship with Ryan was causing.

Speaker 1 She hardly recognized her vibrant, outgoing older sister.

Speaker 7 It just progressively was just her shutting herself off from the rest of the world. You can see her just deteriorating.
She got really, really, really skinny. And it just was.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie wasn't in a rush to be in another relationship. Matt, on the other hand, wasted no time finding a new girlfriend.

Speaker 7 One of my best friends approached me and she said, hey, I just want to let you know that Matt has messaged me and are you okay if we start talking?

Speaker 7 And I was like, you know what, girl, if you want that freaking bag of worms, you want all that drama, all the power to you, sister. So they started talking.

Speaker 1 But after a few months, McKenzie's friend noticed something weird about her conversations with Matt.

Speaker 7 She brought up the fact that when her and Amy hang out

Speaker 7 and she would text Matt,

Speaker 7 it seemed like Amy's bone was going off.

Speaker 7 It would vibrate when he was messaging Matt. I kind of brushed it off.
I said, honestly, I think it might just be a coincidence. Her and Matt and Brian are always talking.

Speaker 7 Amy's also always talking to me. It's probably just that kind of thing.

Speaker 7 And she's like, yay, you're right.

Speaker 1 But later that night, doubts started to creep into Mackenzie's mind. For the first time, she let herself consider the question:

Speaker 1 what if Matt and Ryan weren't real?

Speaker 1 As she thought back on their relationship, little details that seemed like nothing at the time all started to add up.

Speaker 7 All the gifts we've gotten are hand-given to us from amy never in the mail never got an address

Speaker 7 and then i had a blanket uh was handmade from matt

Speaker 7 and amy has the same exact handmade blanket that she made matt ryan also worked for a construction company that is exactly the same as what amy and i did

Speaker 1 finally it all clicked i just was like yeah i think amy is matt Could this be true? Were the sisters talking to Amy the entire time?

Speaker 1 Could Amy have invented not one but two fake boyfriends? McKenzie needed proof.

Speaker 7 Now McKenzie is a detective and I am all over this.

Speaker 1 McKenzie knew that Ryan would often send Lee photos of the construction sites he worked at.

Speaker 7 I ended up messaging Lee and I said, if he sends you any photos of job sites he's at, please send them to me.

Speaker 1 Ryan worked in construction all the way across the country in eastern Canada. If he was really who he said he was, McKenzie should have no way of recognizing the sites.
But if it was really Amy,

Speaker 1 this could be McKenzie's chance to catch her in a lie.

Speaker 1 And finally,

Speaker 1 she got a clue.

Speaker 1 Lee forwarded a photo Ryan had sent her. He said it was from one of his work sites.

Speaker 7 And it's this picture of this really, really high-end bar of a really, really nice house. The light pictures are super unique.
You'll never see it in any other type of house.

Speaker 7 I texted Lee and I said, oh, did Ryan send you this today? And she goes, oh, yeah, he just sent it to me. He said he wants to put that in our house.
He's going to build it for me.

Speaker 7 And so what I do is I take that photo and there's one person that I work with that I told my suspicions of. And so I emailed it to her and I said, you're working with Amy today.

Speaker 7 Is this the site you're at?

Speaker 7 And my coworker sends me back,

Speaker 7 I'm so sorry, Mackenzie.

Speaker 7 I saw Amy sit down, take a photo of that light fixture, and talk about how much she liked it and how she wants it in her future house one day.

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Speaker 1 McKenzie suspected her friend Amy might be catfishing both her and her sister Lee.

Speaker 1 One day, her sister's boyfriend sent her a photo of a light fixture and said he wanted it to be in their future house one day.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie texted her coworker who was working on site with Amy and asked if the photo looked familiar.

Speaker 7 And my coworker sends me back,

Speaker 7 I'm so sorry, McKenzie.

Speaker 7 I saw Amy sit down,

Speaker 7 take a photo of that light fixture, and talk about how much she liked it and how she wants it in her future house one day.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was mad.

Speaker 7 I literally just saw red.

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 started crying

Speaker 7 and kept saying, I can't believe it. I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 There's no way. She grabbed her phone and texted Amy.

Speaker 7 I said, I can't believe you could watch my sister fall into

Speaker 7 this deep depression for two years, lose all of her friends.

Speaker 1 Amy responded right away.

Speaker 7 What she replies back is,

Speaker 7 where are you right now? I'm coming to see you. And I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no.
I don't want to see you.

Speaker 1 Next, Mackenzie called her sister. She had to break the news that her boyfriend, who she had been in love with for years, was actually their friend, Amy, hiding behind a screen.

Speaker 7 I called Lee right away, and I told her.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 when we got home, and I was telling my parents,

Speaker 7 Lee was basically just sitting on the couch, not really having a reaction.

Speaker 7 And she's like, no, no, I'm talking, I'm talking with Ryan. He's real.
Maybe Matt's her, but Ryan's real.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was stunned. She was not prepared for this reaction.

Speaker 7 And I'm like, Lee, what are you talking about? It's all here. It does how you can't have Matt without the other.
That, like, what do you mean?

Speaker 7 I was so mad because I'm giving you the reasoning of why we haven't seen these people.

Speaker 1 Finally, they had answers, but Lee didn't want to hear them.

Speaker 7 Nobody could say anything to her. She'd be like, no, that's just not true.
Because she was so infatuated and in love

Speaker 7 with this man.

Speaker 7 They've talked about their wedding. They have their names of their kids picked out.

Speaker 1 Lee felt so far away. Nothing Mackenzie said seemed to reach her.
She was used to sharing everything with her older sister. Lee was the only person who understood every inch of her world.

Speaker 1 But in that moment, it felt like they were on different planets.

Speaker 7 Which kind of began the deterioration of our friendship, me and my sister,

Speaker 7 was

Speaker 7 how angry I was and how she continued to believe that this individual was a real person.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie knew that in order for her sister to come to terms with the truth, Lee would need to hear it from Amy herself. So they decided to confront Amy at her home.

Speaker 7 Amy wouldn't come out of the house. We met with her mom

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 her mom had no idea who Matt and Ryan are,

Speaker 7 even though she said that Matt and Ryan know her mom and all this stuff.

Speaker 7 Amy finally came out after half an hour

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 said that Matt isn't real.

Speaker 7 Matt is my friend, Sam,

Speaker 7 but Ryan is real.

Speaker 7 Looks Lee straight in the eye. I swear to you, he is real.
I've touched him.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was fuming. Amy had spent years tricking her and her sister into falling in love with guys that didn't exist.

Speaker 1 She had controlled their lives, manipulated their emotions, caused Lee's health to deteriorate. And now, when they had proof of her betrayal, she was still standing in front of them and denying it.

Speaker 7 I looked at Amy and I said,

Speaker 7 so

Speaker 7 your friend Sam started to talk to me as a joke. And she said, yeah.

Speaker 7 And I said, and you knew he was talking to me as a joke. And she said, yes.
And I'm like, and you knew I was going through depression and getting diagnosed with anxiety. And she said, yes.

Speaker 7 And I said, and you thought that would be funny.

Speaker 7 And she said, Well, I didn't know you. And I said, I, even if I didn't know you, I wouldn't allow someone to do that to you.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie gave Amy one last chance to tell the full truth.

Speaker 7 I asked her, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that Ryan is real. And Amy looked me in the eye and said, yes.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 that day, I basically walked out of her house and I

Speaker 7 said

Speaker 7 to Lee that

Speaker 7 if she ever

Speaker 7 admits this one day, she had her chance to tell us. Like, she's in love with you, Lee.

Speaker 7 And Lee's like,

Speaker 7 you know, Mackenzie, if he told you, Matt isn't real, it's somebody else. So just get over it.
No, Ryan's real.

Speaker 1 Leah's response was devastating.

Speaker 7 I found out months later, six months later, that she was still talking with Ryan after she told me she wasn't. And I just want to pick her up and shake her.

Speaker 7 I'm like, how can you not see this?

Speaker 1 Mackenzie and her parents went to the police, hoping that they could do something to stop Amy.

Speaker 7 We saw an officer and basically it was just

Speaker 7 are they using like SIN numbers which is social insurance numbers? It's like no. He's like, well, they're not technically stealing an identity.
They're just using their photos. So it's not a crime.

Speaker 7 And my parents were just like well she's gonna keep doing this she's obviously gonna keep talking to people and hurting people's lives and you know and they're like all we can say is like don't add people you don't know and don't talk to them shortly after that lee moved to toronto basically she ran away

Speaker 1 to this day Lee has never admitted that Ryan wasn't real.

Speaker 7 In reality, Lee fell in love. We want to choose to believe that the people that you end up loving are good.

Speaker 7 And choosing to believe it is easier than accepting the fact that you've been talking to somebody who is not real for the past three years, who you've fallen in love with, who's actually a woman, who you may or may not have sent pictures and other text messages.

Speaker 1 What was especially disturbing was that the betrayal wasn't committed at random or by a stranger. The person that did this was Mackenzie's best friend.

Speaker 7 This was somebody who was in my house every single day. Somebody who I told all my secrets about, you know, like I told her

Speaker 7 how I felt with men and my insecurities and I had intimacy issues with men and I was afraid of whatever. And so she knows all this.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie felt so alone. The only person that could possibly understand what she was going through was refusing to talk about it.

Speaker 7 Trying to talk with my sister. I wanted to talk about it, and she wanted to put it in a pretty box and put it in the closet.
I'm your little sister. We're supposed to be best friends.

Speaker 7 You're supposed to help me. We're supposed to help each other.
And instead,

Speaker 7 you ran away and you chose to not talk about it.

Speaker 1 Amy caused long-lasting damage to Lee and the sisters' friendship.

Speaker 7 You watch the person you idolized so much and

Speaker 7 after everything kind of happened, it was.

Speaker 7 She just wasn't

Speaker 7 Lee anymore. I was mad at her for a very long time.
Now we're better, obviously, but we're just not the same. We're just...

Speaker 7 Our friendship... That relationship hasn't been the same since everything happened.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie reached out for support and started going to therapy.

Speaker 7 I needed that help because I was angry.

Speaker 7 I was trying to desensitize myself from this story and put together what the hell just happened.

Speaker 1 Looking back now, McKenzie can see why Amy's catfishing was so convincing. She had created two characters, Matt and Ryan, who were always confirming each other's stories.

Speaker 1 If one of them said they were hiking, the girls would get sent photos of Matt and Ryan together on a hike, just like they said.

Speaker 1 There was no reason to doubt it because the idea of creating a scheme with multiple fake people seemed so far-fetched.

Speaker 7 Once Matt was brought into it, it made it seem more

Speaker 7 real.

Speaker 7 That's too many people too. You know what I mean? I don't know how to explain that.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie never found out who the guys in the photos were, but she suspects that they were real cousins or even brothers who had public social media profiles.

Speaker 1 And Amy must have been stealing their pictures without their knowledge.

Speaker 7 I still have photos of them. I've reverse image searched all of them

Speaker 7 and I can't find anything.

Speaker 1 Amy introduced these characters at a time when both Lee and Mackenzie really needed someone to talk to.

Speaker 7 Matt and Ryan started talking to both of us in a very vulnerable time. Lee is very heartbroken from her previous relationship being cheated on.

Speaker 7 I'm in kind of the same boat, but also I'm going through depression and anxiety, and I obviously don't know how to wrap my head around that.

Speaker 1 But this story doesn't end here. Because 10 years later, the sisters both found ways to move forward and heal.
Lee eventually built the life she'd always dreamed of.

Speaker 7 Lee's doing great. She meets a guy.
She has two little kids now, a little boy and a little girl, and they are absolutely adorable. I love them so very much.

Speaker 7 She's thriving as a mom, and her husband is one of my favorite people of all time. He's hilarious.

Speaker 1 And Mackenzie built a life she genuinely loved too. It started when she realized she liked girls.

Speaker 7 It was like, yeah, okay, I've never actually kissed a girl before. Kissed her, and then I remember being like,

Speaker 7 oh, oh,

Speaker 7 that's what it's supposed to feel like.

Speaker 1 She finally felt authentically herself.

Speaker 7 It was the opening of, okay, I can be me now.

Speaker 7 I had my first girlfriend, fell in love. Then we fast forward to 2023, I'm out living my best life.

Speaker 7 And my friend from back when

Speaker 7 everything happened sends me a DM on Instagram.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie was surprised to hear from her. She opened the message.

Speaker 7 Just basically saying, hey, you know, I know we don't talk anymore, but I've watched all your pictures and your videos, and I'm just so proud of you. You look so happy.

Speaker 7 And I just said, oh, that's great. Hope you're doing well.

Speaker 7 And she goes, I actually messaged you because I got a message from Amy a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 1 Amy had reached out to McKenzie's friend with a voice memo confession. McKenzie's friend sent her the file.

Speaker 7 And I play it and I hear Amy's voice and she says,

Speaker 7 it was me.

Speaker 7 It was always me.

Speaker 7 I did it.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 And then she says,

Speaker 7 I was struggling with internalized homophobia.

Speaker 7 And that's why I did the things I did.

Speaker 7 I just was like, are you joking?

Speaker 1 Internalized homophobia is when society's homophobia causes a queer person to feel shame, guilt, or even self-hatred about their own identity.

Speaker 1 Amy was essentially saying that she had created fake, straight relationships with the sisters because she didn't feel like she could come out as gay and be herself at the time.

Speaker 1 Mackenzie knew how harmful internalized homophobia could be because she experienced it herself for years. But it wasn't an excuse to catfish and harm people.

Speaker 7 You're giving yourself an out

Speaker 7 to explain the shitty things you did. I'm not going to my friend's house pretending to be other people.

Speaker 7 I'm not manipulating other people into, you know, doing X, Y, Z. I'm not gaslighting people into talking.
to these people that aren't real.

Speaker 7 I'm not sleeping over at my friend's house trying to cuddle them in the night while they're talking to this fake person that's actually me.

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 7 I barely have a friendship with my sister and it's all because of what she decided to do for

Speaker 7 three

Speaker 7 years.

Speaker 1 Amy's apology didn't feel genuine.

Speaker 7 She did this because she wanted to. She did this because she likes to manipulate.
She did this because she likes the control.

Speaker 7 She took advantage of young girls that had just broken up with their significant others that were vulnerable and preyed upon them.

Speaker 7 We've all moved on.

Speaker 7 And that whole apology, you're doing it to see if you can still affect our lives. You want to see if you still have that hold.

Speaker 1 In the end, Amy has to live with what she did, but she doesn't have power over Mackenzie and Lee anymore. Mackenzie has moved on.
She processed Amy's betrayal, but she didn't let it paralyze her.

Speaker 1 She hasn't stopped trusting people.

Speaker 7 When I love, I love with all of me. I don't hold back.
I don't hide the fact that I am an emotional person. I'm a great friend.
I think I'm a great sister. I think, you know, I just love people.

Speaker 7 Good people.

Speaker 1 We end every weekly episode with the same question.

Speaker 1 Why do you want to share your story?

Speaker 7 I

Speaker 7 chose to write in because

Speaker 7 everybody's on social media. Everybody has a phone.
Betrayal can be on so many different levels.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I want people to know that

Speaker 7 regardless of the betrayal you go through, I feel like if you're willing to do therapy and you're willing to look at yourself in a deeper level, it can make you a better person.

Speaker 7 And funnier because you have more trauma.

Speaker 1 On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly,

Speaker 1 there's this feeling that mums are good.

Speaker 1 No matter what, mums are good. And even if they do the wrong thing, it's because they love you so much.

Speaker 1 If you need to accept the lie to live, then you accept the lie, right?

Speaker 1 If you would like to reach out out to the betrayal team or want to tell us your betrayal story, email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com.

Speaker 1 Or follow us on Instagram at betrayalpod. You can also connect with me on Instagram at it'sandrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 To access our newsletter, view additional content, and connect with the betrayal community, join our substack at betrayal.substack.com. We're grateful for your support.

Speaker 1 One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners.

Speaker 1 Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison.

Speaker 1 Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning.

Speaker 1 Written and produced by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Fetterman.
Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck.

Speaker 1 Audio editing on this episode by Dean Welsh. Mixing and mastering by Dave Saya.
Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Baines.

Speaker 1 Music library provided by MIBE Music.

Speaker 1 And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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