Woman who used plastic doll to fake having a baby breaks silence on why she did it
A woman who faked giving birth by using a plastic doll has spoken out about why she did it.
Cousins, 23, hit headlines last year after it was revealed she had fooled her then-boyfriend and family by wearing a fake baby bump and then attempting to pass off a doll as a newborn baby.
The supermarket worker, from Airdrie in Scotland, wore a prosthetic bump for months, had a gender reveal party and shared regular updates and scan images onto social media.
She eventually claimed to have given birth to a daughter, weighing 5lb 4oz, called Bonnie-Leigh Joyce, but the newborn was actually a realistic-looking doll that Cousins dressed up in baby clothes.
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Cousins eventually confessed all on her Instagram page at the time, writing: "I wasn’t pregnant. There was no baby. I made it up and kept it going way too far. I faked scans, messages, a whole birth story, and acted like a doll was a real baby.
"I know how f**ked up that is — I just didn’t know how to stop once I started."
She said she didn’t have ‘a proper excuse’ as to why she did it but added that she ‘wasn’t in a good headspace’ at the time.
“That doesn’t make what I did okay. I know this is going to stick with me for a long time, and that I’ve probably lost friends I’ll never get back.
"I’m trying to figure myself out and get help, because this version of me isn’t someone I want to be.
"I know I’ve ruined a lot of trust, and that 'sorry' won’t fix everything but it’s all I can say right now."
After revealing what she’d done, Cousins shied away from media attention but has now done her first interview with the Sunday Mail where she explained why she did what she did.
Cousins told the publication that she had been pregnant but suffered a miscarriage and didn’t feel able to tell her then-boyfriend Jamie Gardener the tragic news.
She said: "I couldn't tell him. I did lose a child. I'd tried to tell him when I first lost the child.
“I still have messages on my phone which said, 'Jamie, we need to sit down,' but I couldn't speak to him about anything. I can hold my hands up and say, 'No, I shouldn't have used a doll', but at the same time, nobody knows what our relationship was like."
Cousins went on to say that she let the lie spiral because she was too scared and shocked to reveal the truth.
"I think there was a bit of fear and shock as well,” she continued.
“I'd gone through that myself. How do you tell someone that you've already gone through all that by yourself?".
Gardener disputed Cousins’ claims and told the Sunday Mail that he doesn’t recall her ever trying to tell him about the miscarriage.
“If I had ever known that was really a doll, I’d have run off sooner. I’ve not got a clue what really happened to be honest,” he said.
Cousins said her family grew suspicious after never hearing the ‘baby’ cry.
The deception eventually came to light after younger relatives saw the ‘baby’ and told their mum ‘that’s a doll’.
Cousins later revealed the truth to Gardener and said ‘that was the last time we ever saw each other’.
Topics: UK News
Claire Reid