Scott Johnson

Was it a man?

Was it a woman?

Was it multiple people?

Was it a criminal enterprise?

So there were all these questions.

The story went viral kind of, and it just became a thing.

And so I kept working on it and I started getting more reporting and I learned eventually, you know, who it was.

And I started talking to more victims, but we didn't know, I didn't know, you know, really anything.

much more than that.

I had a sense of who it was, but I didn't know the real name.

I didn't know much about the backstory of the person.

We didn't really know where he was from day to day, because in addition, weirdly, to doing this scam, this person also had a side gig as a food influencer in London, which was a completely different and sort of

just a very weird thing to be doing while you're running this very elaborate scam in Hollywood.

So that added a new wrinkle to the whole story.

And I thought, well, that's definitely worth some time trying to figure that out.

So the months go by, time goes by, and ultimately I decided, well, I want to try to write a book about this guy.

So

I sold the book idea in 2020, early 2020.

And I started writing, I started doing the reporting and working on the book.

And then of course, you know, COVID hit.