PRETEND is an investigative true crime podcast about real people who lie for a living — con artists, scammers, and the victims caught in their web. Hosted by journalist Javier Leiva , PRETEND exposes the human psychology behind deception and fraud. Each episode follows a real case of manipulation — from financial scams and Ponzi schemes to digital hoaxes and emotional cons PRETEND explains how and why deception works without shaming victims, combining ethical journalism with cinematic storytelling. Featured in lists of the best podcasts about con artists and scams , PRETEND investigates crimes of persuasion, trust, and betrayal. New episodes drop regularly with stories that reveal how manipulation shapes modern life, both online and off. PRETEND is produced by Creative Babble, LLC. © 2026 Creative Babble LLC [CLAIM:B6BT3XC4]
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
37%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchPRETEND is an investigative true crime podcast about real people who lie for a living, con artists, scammers, and the victims caught in their web. Hosted by journalist Javier Leiva, PRETEND exposes the human psychology behind deception and fraud.
Recent episodes include "The Stalker: Fit to Stand Trial? Part 24" (27 October 2026, 27 minutes), "The Prophet: A Word of Faith Fellowship Minister Back in Court, 13 Years Later" (20 October 2026, 40 minutes), and "The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 10" (13 October 2026, 56 minutes).
PRETEND publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 36 minutes across 328 episodes.
Booking probability for PRETEND is 37%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. PRETEND requires a Pod Score of 86 or higher. PRETEND's contact route on record: verified email.
PRETEND is a technology podcast with 328 episodes published.
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Episode #24
According to police, Shelbey Fernandez ran a stalking campaign for years. She used burner numbers, fake accounts and fake 911 calls. She asked Google how detectives trace a texting app, how long a burner number lasts...
Episode #12
A 19-year-old says members of his church held him down, choked him, and beat him for two hours, trying to cast out what they called his “homosexual demons.” That was in 2013. Thirteen years, a mistrial, and countless...
Episode #10
When Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a little girl, the thing that comforted her most was her mother's touch. In the final episode of The Gypsy Rose Obsession, I ask Gypsy when that changed. I also track down the attorney who...
Episode #9
When Gypsy Rose Blanchard announced she was pregnant, the internet opened an investigation. The woman who spent her childhood trapped inside her mother's medical lies was now raising a daughter of her own. In this...
PRETEND
How does a doctor actually decide that a parent is making their child sick? Dr. John Melville is a child abuse pediatrician, president of the Ray E. Helfer Society, and one of the people who helped write the board exam...
PRETEND
Ken Urker, Gypsy Rose Blanchard's partner and the father of their daughter, Aurora, died on October 1, 2026, his 34th birthday. The sheriff is still investigating, and no official cause of death has been released. Gypsy...
Episode #8
Gypsy Rose Blanchard thought no one was listening. For years, everything she said from inside Chillicothe was being recorded. Now it's public. More than five hundred hours of it. Some of those recordings broke through...
Episode #7
"I didn't f---ing get my own f---ing mother murdered just so I could live for everybody else." That is Gypsy Rose Blanchard on a recorded prison line, saying the quiet part out loud. She had taken the plea and could...
Episode #6
There are people online right now who don't believe Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen by proxy. Some of them don't believe Munchausen by proxy is a real thing at all. So if the abuse wasn't real, how do you explain the...
Episode #5
According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've found it. The smoking gun. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has a rare genetic disorder, a microdeletion on chromosome 1, and depending on who you ask online, that one word explains the...
PRETEND
I sat down with Alaura and Amber from Into the Weeds, the podcast that first dug through the Gypsy Rose Blanchard FOIA files. I wanted their honest reaction to my microdeletion episode, including the part where they...
Episode #4
According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've got the receipts. Gypsy really had leukemia. She really needed that bone marrow treatment, and the feeding tube and the surgeries were all real and documented, not fabricated...
Episode #26
It's like getting to the end of a movie and discovering the twist, then going back to the beginning because every scene means something else. That's what I've been doing all week with the Rick and Tanya Fernandez...
Episode #3
Long before Gypsy Rose Blanchard's mother was murdered, the tension inside that house was already at a breaking point. The private videos between Gypsy and Nick Godejohn that nobody was supposed to see. The evidence of...
Episode #2
Her critics say Gypsy Rose Blanchard can't keep her story straight. So I sat down with her for almost three hours and asked about all of it. The pills through the feeding tube. The video where she tells Nick Godejohn...
PRETEND
For almost five years, the Fernandez family told me their doctor's husband was terrorizing them. Threatening messages, unpaid pizza deliveries, police at the door for crimes that never happened. Three weeks ago, Peoria...
Episode #1
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is the most beloved convicted murderer in America. Half the country sees a victim. The other half thinks she conned everyone, including her mother. I spent months trying to figure out which side is...
PRETEND
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is America's most beloved convicted murderer. She spent 23 years in a wheelchair, with a feeding tube, a breathing machine, and a diagnosis list that never ended. None of it was real. Her mother...
Episode #10
William Ruzich's father stole his identity while he was deployed in Afghanistan. He came home from war at 21 to find bills, liens, and creditors in his own name. He turned his own dad in for fraud. Then he went to work...
Episode #9
My friend Joe sells real estate. He called me about one of his clients, a retired nurse who was selling her house, because something about her story wasn't sitting right with him. She'd lost her savings to a man named...
Recent guests on PRETEND. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
prenatal genetic counselor and genetics podcaster, DNA Today
Into the Weeds Content
Good Wives Network
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