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Man who pretended to be missing child in jaw-dropping documentary The Imposter is now on TikTok

Home> News

Published 09:28 29 Dec 2022 GMT

Man who pretended to be missing child in jaw-dropping documentary The Imposter is now on TikTok

Frederic Bourdin, the identity thief dubbed as 'The Chameleon', is now posting unusual content on TikTok.

Harley Young

Harley Young

Dubbed 'one of the most jaw-dropping documentaries of the last decade', the BAFTA-winning documentary The Imposter has been raising eyebrows and causing a stir since it's addition to the Netflix true crime catalogue earlier this month.

Though what might be even more shocking is that con artist Frederic Bourdin is now on TikTok under the username @fredericbourdin. Check out some of his bizarre videos below:

The French-born serial imposter, born in June 1974, has been nicknamed as 'The Chameleon' by the press due to his ability to almost 'shape-shift' his way into acting and looking like a missing child or teenager

Bourdin claims to have assumed at least 500 false identities during his unruly series of identity theft crimes.

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However, Bourdin has only recently been plunged back into the spotlight as the story being uploaded to Netflix has caused the 10-year-old documentary to trend again.

The Guardian / YouTube
The Guardian / YouTube
Frédéric Bourdin posed as missing child Nicholas Barclay.
Film4

The Imposter details the case of missing child Nicholas Barclay, who disappeared suddenly in San Antonio, Texas.

After a while of searching, local authorities presumed the young boy had been murdered even though a body was never found and the search was eventually called off much to the family's dismay. Shockingly, the grieving family received a phone call in 1997 saying that their son had been found thousands of miles away in Spain.

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Thinking they would simply be reunited, the family breathed a sigh of relief, but their bizarre ordeal was far from over.

Watch the trailer below:

Bourdin's TikTok account, primarily presented in French, includes a whole host of videos including clips of himself on talk shows promoting a book entitled The Chameleon; singing along to a song about 'keeping the faith' with a text overlay saying 'Love: 1 / Covid: 0'; and a rather strange clip of him and his dog watching TV and not really acknowledging the camera as though he isn't the one filming.

@fredericbourdin / TikTok
@fredericbourdin / TikTok

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Since taking on false identities in countries including Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Italy and Denmark (to name just a handful), Bourdin was sentenced to six years in prison for passport fraud and perjury in relation to the Nicholas Barclay case.

He married in 2007 and went on to have five children with his French wife Isabella, but on a Facebook post ten years later in 2017, Bourdin wrote that Isabella had left with the kids.

In relation to his crimes, including the one that caused grief to the Barclay family, Bourdin said: "I am not a criminal. I never wanted to be an adult. I'm just a boy who needs love and attention."

Bourdin currently has social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Featured Image Credit: fredericbourdin/TikTok

Topics: Netflix, True Crime

Harley Young
Harley Young

Freelance Journalist for LADbible Group

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@Harley__Young

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