'Fake Madeleine McCann' is back and she has something to get off her chest
‘Fake’ Madeleine McCann is back and says she regrets taking to social media last year with sensational claims that she was the missing girl.
Julia Wandelt, 22, had previously apologised to Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, for the “sadness” caused by the claim that has since been debunked by DNA analysis.
In a new interview, however, the Polish woman said she knew her actions could have a harmful effect on the McCanns, but insisted that she had to put herself first when she set up the Instagram account “@iammadeleinemccan”.
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“I thought about [the harmful effect] but I had to put myself in first place because this is my life and I really wanted to know who I am,” she told BBC podcast, Why Do You Hate Me?
“I knew that it could make them feel sad, but they want to find their child, so I believe that this is a hope and I felt that I was doing right.”
Ms Wandelt explained that had suffered sexual abuse at a young age and would not remember large parts of her childhood. She began to think that she was adopted and began searching missing persons reports online.
When she found information on Madeleine McCann, she thought photofits or sketches of suspects in the case looked like the person who had abused her, and began to believe that she may be Madeleine.
Ms Wandelt remains critical of the police that they did not take her claims seriously when she contacted them last year.
“I called them so many times, I called them and said the same things, but no one treated me seriously, even when I say that I recognise the person,” she stated.
“Even if they don’t believe me, they should check it. But they didn’t, and it was weird that they acted like this.”
She also expected Kate and Gerry McCann to contact her directly, but they didn’t. Instead, she heard from someone involved in the campaign to find Madeleine, who went missing in Portugal in 2007.
Madeleine McCann
Dissatisfied with the reaction of the authorities, she turned to social media to see if people would listen to her claims – a move that she now regrets.
“I would never go on social media [if I had the chance again]. It can destroy you,” added Ms Wandelt.
Recalling the abuse that she received after publishing her claims online and gaining more than a million followers on Instagram, she said it was hard to deal with and that she hadn’t expected to receive death threats.
“I was trying to be strong, even when people were saying ‘You should die,’ ‘You should be raped,’ ‘You should be killed,’ ‘You should be murdered,’ ‘You shouldn’t exist in this world,’ ‘You are a bi**h.’”
She added that one person had put a bounty on her head, offering €30,000 for her to be killed. But Ms Wandelt kept posting “because I wanted to know the truth”.
Subsequently DNA analysis revealed that the 22-year-old was originally from Poland with some Lithuanian and Romanian heritage – conclusively debunking her claim that she was Madeleine McCann.
Referring to her earlier apology to the McCanns, Ms Wandelt said: “If in any way I hurt them, I didn’t want to… So, I apologised just to make sure everything was fine, I didn’t want anyone to be sad.”
She made the comments in an interview for Why Do You Hate Me? – a series investigating cases in which individuals have been the subject of online hate.
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