Scamanda podcast creator on what 'genuinely shocked' her about new series on Steven Spielberg's fake nephew

Broadcaster and documentary-maker Charlie Webster achieved global success with her podcast Scamanda in 2023, and now she’s back with a riveting new story to tell, parts of which she says ‘genuinely shocked’ her.

Titled SPLBERG, the Audible podcast tells the story of a 27-year-old man who pretends to be the 14-year-old nephew of American film director Steven Spielberg, so he can secure a place at a private school in Virginia in the late 1990s.

He befriends students, drives a BMW with the personalised number plate SPLBERG and makes claims about Hollywood A-lister Ben Affleck going to prom with him. He also legally changed his name to Jonathan Taylor Spielberg, until his real name emerges and it's clear he's not who he claims to be.

The case of Steven Spielberg’s fake nephew

Talking about what surprised her about the case, Webster, 43, told LADbible: “The comedy framing everywhere and everybody treated it like something funny that happened and a playground joke. That genuinely shocked me. These were real kids. How reachable he was. He wasn't hiding. He wanted to be found.”

Asked why people were so inclined to believe him, Webster says: “Because we're all susceptible. That's the uncomfortable truth this show asks you to sit with. The 90s were the peak of monoculture celebrity, fewer famous people, which made them bigger. If you had a connection to that world, you had something almost nobody else had. That's intoxicating."

“And he was good. He was charming, he was specific, he knew exactly which details to drop and when. Con artistry at that level isn't about being brazen, it's about being just believable enough. Also, nobody wanted to be the person who doubted him. That's very human. Nobody wants to be the buzzkill who ruins the magic. Also who for a second would think somebody would go into a school and pretend to be 14?”.

Reflecting on the tougher parts of the case, she explains: “Getting people to go on record, 20 years on, some of them had built whole lives around not thinking about this. Asking them to go back there is a big ask. There was a lot of emotion here even now, some people felt ashamed and embarrassed. I do think this also had something to do with Catholic culture. I spoke to a lot of people off the record. And to protect their trust and legally I can’t report what they told me.

“The legal complexity is real - I can't overstate how carefully we had to move. Every word in this series has been weighed.”

“Sitting across from 'Jonathan' himself. I'd spent months with everyone else's version of him before I sat in that room. That's a strange thing to carry into a conversation.

“And honestly? Deciding whether to make it at all. That question didn't go away once I said yes. It was there every single day of production.”

What is Scamanda about?

Her hit podcast Scamanda topped charts globally, also at the time becoming the most-shared on Apple Podcasts, while retaining the top spot for three months.

It was also the subject of a four-part docu-series which aired on BBC2, telling the story of mother and blogger Amanda Riley, from San Jose, California, who started a blog called ‘Lymphoma Can Suck It’ detailing her cancer journey.

She described being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in her late 20s, and received a wave of sympathy from her community, followers and the church, until her web of lies slowly unraveled when a producer named Nancy got a tip to look into her claims.

Riley insisted she was still ill, but when the Department of Justice applied pressure, her version of events got rigorously tested in court.

Sheffield-born Webster has been a Women’s Aid ambassador since 2010 and after surviving severe malaria in 2016, she became an ambassador for Malaria No More.

She had cycled 3000 miles from London to Rio for charity, becoming ill ahead of a presenting stint at the Olympic Games. She was given 24 hours to live, with multiple organ failure and was put on life support in a coma. She survived and had to relearn how to walk again.

In June this year she was made an MBE for Services to Broadcasting and Charity, having hosted major sporting events like the Olympics, Premier and Champions League Football, including La Liga, Formula One, Wimbledon and more. In 2014 she made history in the boxing world by becoming the first woman globally to host a live heavyweight world title fight, and her broadcast work across her career also includes acclaimed BBC documentary Nowhere to Run: Abused by Our Coach.

She said of the MBE: “I think it represents a lot of things for me, and just also hopefully for some people it inspires them too, not to be an MBE, but inspires them to learn more about my journey, which hopefully then in turn inspires them.”

SPLBERG is available on Audible.