Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (2024) Movie Script

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 queer 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 fuck 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 shit, 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 queer.
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 "lesbian 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 queer.
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 queer
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
queer" 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 gay,
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 queer.
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 queer 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 abusive
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 fucking 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 fucked, 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 fucked.
Yeah, we all felt very
fucked 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 fucked.
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 lesbian 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 lesbian 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 shit
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 shit.
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 queer spaces.
I still don't wanna
be in queer 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 fuckin' 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...
queer 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 fuck?"
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, fondled, 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 killed 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 abusive
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 fucking 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
bitch started a war 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, fuck 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 fucked up, like, I was
like, "This is really fucked up.
"This is, like, a real
breach of privacy.
Like get a fuckin'
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, "Fuck 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
fuck 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 fuckin'
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 fucked 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fuck 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