Hollywood's Top Executives Become Catfish in New Doc

As if being a freelancer wasn't hard enough, try being a freelancer looking for bill payments on the other side of the world, having already been tricked into shelling out thousands of dollars to pursue your biggest Tinseltown dreams . This is the reality: more than 500 people were subjected to different levels of severity in the grandiose scam reported by Hollywood Con Queenthe new three-episode documentary series available on Apple TV+ on May 8.

What begins as an account of an incredibly detailed scam turns into a portrait of online deception, reflecting high-profile scandals from the Harvey Weinstein affair to something as relatively niche as a recent scam perpetrated by a disgraced man. RuPauls Drag Race competitor. Hollywood Con Queen is a fast-paced binge that has everything cheat-obsessed viewers could want, as long as one of those things isn't a primary focus. While the series is great to watch, it's another example of a docuseries that spins its wheels, bloating itself needlessly to keep its audience engaged. But while the ending may leave something to be desired, the series' journey is compelling, thanks to new first-hand documentation and a self-centered conundrum behind it all.

If you're familiar with the 2014 Sony hack and subsequent information leaks, or if you're a chronic user of online social media, mesmerized. by her wig At Challengers First, the name Amy Pascal might mean something to you. Pascal is the former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment whose name appeared several times in these leaked documents nearly 10 years ago, primarily in innocuous correspondence with Rooney Mara over an abandoned case. Girl with dragon tattoo that still haunts me. In 2017, Pascal inadvertently found himself at the scene of a crime again, when a fraudster used Pascal's name to pose as the tycoon and deceive freelance photographer and videographer Will Strathman. The fake version of Pascal repeatedly lured Strathman to Bali, at his expense, to photograph storyboards for an equally fake project. It was a months-long process that only ended after Strathman's father contacted Pascal's people, who told him the heartbreaking truth: They had received numerous complaints of the same nature.

This conman, who would later be considered the queen of Hollywood con artists by The Hollywood Reporter, didn't stop at Pascal either. They've also played some of the entertainment industry's other most powerful women, like Lucasfilm chairman Kathleen Kennedy, former 20th Century Fox CEO Stacey Snider, and producer and entrepreneur Wendi Murdoch. For viewers who think they may be too savvy to fall for this scam, there are some repercussions. The Con Queen was so well researched and knew each victim, their professions, and the people they portrayed inside and out, that those being tricked thought there was no chance it was a scam. But perhaps even more frightening, the Con Queen was so skilled at identity theft that she made the feds, victims, and moguls believe that multiple women were behind it.

In reality, all these maneuvers were carried out by one man: Hargobind Tahilramani, alias Harvey, alias Gavin. Tahilramani was hiding in plain sight, as an obnoxious food blogger and influencer who had alienated a good portion of London's restaurants through his pushy personality alone. The scams continued even as Tahilramani attempted to present an impeccable public image, and Hollywood Con Queen probes this dissonance throughout its final two episodes.

The first episode is a master class in documentary filmmaking, complete with incredible evidence implicating Tahilramani in the form of recorded phone calls showing him impersonating all those Hollywood moguls. The only thing more exciting than finding out that a victim has started recording their phone correspondence is finding out that multiple victims have done so. Along with the shocking emails, texts and requests, these calls are the hooks that Hollywood Con Queen sinks into its audience, keeping them coming back for the next two episodes of the series.

The second and third episodes are a little less convincing but no less astonishing. Once the series enters the prurient darkness of Tahilramani's manipulation, which includes brief, graphic phone sex and requests for kisses over the phone that will make your stomach ache, it's reminiscent of Weinstein's equally abhorrent behavior. So when it is revealed that Tahilramani had cited Weinstein as an inspiration, the scammers' motivations take on a frightening new clarity. Money is an added advantage, Scott Johnson, who wrote the Hollywood journalist article, said in the series. Satisfaction was had in their suffering.

It is Johnson who ultimately pursues Tahilramani in the second half of the series, following him through digital evidence to Manchester, England. (It's not surprising that a self-centered gay man can be traced to his location through an Instagram live video, but it's hysterical.) Once Johnson comes face to face with Tahilramani, Hollywood Con Queen becomes both disturbing and darkly comic. Watching Tahilramani squirm, while completely downplaying the scale of his crimes, is strangely amusing. But this is the third and final episode of the series, which spends far too much time letting Tahilramani ramble, while Johnson and others speculate about what mental health issues the conman might suffer from, where the series stumbles .

While it's essential to paint a fair picture of a scam, spending so much time on Tahilramani's meanderings about his love of cinema, the entertainment industry and his childhood threatens to make this scammer too sympathetic. Considering how many people he scammed, traumatized, and stole from, a shocking amount of monetary value was accumulated, but I'll leave that for the show to reveal. Getting too close to Tahilramani risks extending an unnecessary amount of empathy to someone who didn't have the same concern for his victims. . The middle of the final episode goes nowhere quickly, and by the time Joker the allegories are beginning to be made, it is time to Hollywood Con Queen to pack it.

The show's conclusion isn't completely satisfying, but there's never really an ending when hundreds of people have been scammed out of money they may never see again. Hollywood Con Queen would have done well to emphasize this point, instead of pontificating ad nauseam about Tahilramani's motivations, especially when these questions have no answer. Still, the documentary series is an undeniably thrilling adventure, one that provides a necessary cautionary tale for anyone who mistakenly thinks being a freelancer is as easy as it sounds.