Exclusive Interview
‘Love Con Revenge’: Cecilie Fjellhøy Talks ‘Tinder Swindler’ Spinoff & Major Off-Camera Development
Almost immediately after she appeared in The Tinder Swindler, Cecilie Fjellhøy got to work on Love Con Revenge, which almost serves as a companion piece to Netflix’s 2022 documentary.
“Because it was such a need,” she explained the quick turnaround in an interview with Swooon. “The amount of people I already have now, people reaching out to me wanting help. Can you imagine? Like, ‘I need help from you because no one else is helping.‘ So that’s what happened after The Tinder Swindler even before Love Con Revenge was born.”
Fjellhøy stars in Netflix’s new docuseries, in which she assists others who fell in love only to be conned out of thousands — in one case, millions — by their partner. Several years ago, Fjellhøy says she was manipulated into giving $250,000 by Simon Leviev, who pretended to be the heir to a diamond tycoon’s fortune. Leviev, who remains a free man today, would reportedly tell his then-girlfriend that he was in danger and, in order to escape, he needed funds that couldn’t be traced to his name. Ayleen Koelema and Pernilla Sjöholm also spoke out against Leviev in the doc.
“I’ve been all over the world, I see how similar these cases are,” Fjellhøy says. “It is the same tactics, but of course, as we can see in Love Con Revenge, the victims and sometimes the identities and methods are really different as well.”
Cecilie Fjellhøy and Brianne Joseph in Episode 102 of ‘Love Con Revenge.’
The main difference between Love Con Revenge and Tinder Swindler — beyond the fact that a fraud victim is running the show rather than a documentarian — is that every featured case is still active. “I owe everything to The Tinder Swindler, but it’s a retrospective story,” she noted. “And then you see Simon out and about, and that’s it. What are we going to do about it? What I feel the show is really good at is showing how difficult it is to get justice. And that’s why we need this show, to show it’s systemic.”
That being said, the perpetrators in Love Con Revenge don’t always get charged, but according to Fjellhøy, getting the victims’ stories out there could go a long way. Even though the victims might be faced with public criticism, it still gets eyes on the issue at large and could inspire others in similar situations to come forward.
“You might get people questioning your actions, but you’re still doing it,” Fjellhøy said. “All of the contributors here and the victims, we’re on the same page. We know we will meet sometimes ridicule, but we don’t care. I think that’s what I thought about from The Tinder Swindler: It’s worth it.”
She added, “Even though the police might not take on the case, but we never know now. I hope that even in some of the cases where things haven’t happened, I hope people will put some pressure as they did in my case.”
Since Love Con Revenge wrapped filming, there’s already been an off-camera development with one of the cases. In Episode 2, Bridget Phillips claims that her ex, Ricky Morrisey, lied about his military background to swindle her out of money. She says Morrisey told her an Army buddy died taking a bullet for him, and he needed to send money to the family he left behind. When they located that family, they said it was a complete fabrication.
“That is what I have to say to people: Normal people like you and me never lie about something like that because we have empathy and we have a heart, and these individuals don’t,” she said. “I think Ricky, and I think in a lot of these cases, they think they deserve to be successful… They believe their own lies, and that’s why they’re good at lying and manipulating because they believe it themselves.”
Morrisey was one of the few Love Con Revenge perpetrators to get arrested and put to trial. He was found guilty of fraud and larceny against Phillips.
“Yeah, Ricky has his sentencing today,” Fjellhøy confirmed when Swooon spoke to her on Friday, September 5. “I think it’s so poignant, you know what I mean? That he has his sentencing on the [premiere day]. So that is maybe the one that we are most proud of because Bridget was full on since she contacted me a month after she was defrauded. She realized immediately that ‘I need help’ or she saw myself and was like, ‘I need to protect others here. There’s so many others here.'”
Love Con Revenge doesn’t just tell the stories of women being taken advantage of by men. In one episode, a man named Aaron Ward comes forward about being conned by his ex-girlfriend, Sabrina Taylor, who reportedly lied about having multiple sclerosis (MS). He paid near $100,000 for what he thought were her doctor appointments.
Aaron Ward in episode 104 of ‘Love Con Revenge.’
“We can talk a lot about gender as going public as a woman compared to a man, but this is not a gendered crime and we need people like Aaron,” Fjellhøy said.
After pleading guilty to stealing, Taylor was required pay her victims back, but Ward wasn’t one of them since he was beyond the five-year statute of limitations for wire fraud. He didn’t know he was scammed until years later. “I’m sad we couldn’t do more for him,” Fjellhøy said. “But I’m very happy that he stepped forward. I hope he will have a lot of love and people reach out to him—men—to say… That is my dream, that they will feel, ‘Oh, I feel seen and I feel heard. I’ve been there.’”
Messages from victims around the world have already started rolling in since the show dropped, Fjellhøy said. Netflix hasn’t yet renewed Love Con Revenge for a Season 2, but Fjellhøy wants to continue her work and remove the stigma around romance fraud regardless.
“I think that is the thing in society that is hindering so much of the progress with this crime,” she said. “So if the green light [comes], great, if not, I will be able to help in other ways. So I will never stop, no matter what.”
Since she has no plans to distance herself from the world of romance fraud, does Fjellhøy stand by what she said at the end of The Tinder Swindler: that she still believes in love?
“I have to say, it’s been difficult to, but I think that is just bad relationships that you have all around these days,” she explained.
Fjellhøy has felt the love from her family and friends since she started speaking out about romance fraud, too. “I’ve really seen who’s with me, and I think with the victims here as well. A lot of them have come together as peers. The same with me and Ayleen and Pernilla, and that you just found your little tribe. That love is important as well.”
“Romantic love, we will see,” she added. “We will see what happens in the end with me, but I haven’t given up. I still love love. And I like to have that kind of label. I don’t think it’s bad at all. We all need to.”
Love Con Revenge, Season 1, Now Streaming, Netflix
