Sweet Bobby: The Shocking True Story Behind Netflix’s New Documentary

2 months ago

Tortoise Media’s hit podcast has been transferred to the screen

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When Alexi Mostrous launched his Sweet Bobby podcast for Tortoise Media in 2021, it was met with an immediate outpouring of, well, confusion. Who is Bobby? What are his motivations? Why would someone do this, and why isn’t it a crime?

Before we get to those questions, however, we should cover the basics. If you weren’t one of the original thousands of listeners jumping on to their phones to listen to each part of Sweet Bobby as it dropped in Tortoise Media’s podcast feed, and your friends haven’t convinced you to listen to this word-of-mouth hit just yet, Sweet Bobby is an investigative podcast centred on a London woman named Kirat Assi. A successful marketer and local radio presenter, the podcast flashes back to 2009 when Kirat received a Facebook friend request from a man named Bobby. What she didn’t realise then was that clicking the ‘accept’ button would change the course of her life forever. Well, for the next decade and a half – at least.

While we highly recommend tuning in, for those who prefer documentaries, Netflix has transformed the podcast into a documentary, co-produced by the team at Tortoise. Here’s what to expect, plus the real story behind the jaw-dropping show.

Kirat Assi in Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare

The True Story Behind Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare

Beginning in 2009, Sweet Bobby is one of the most elaborate catfishing cases we have seen on British shores. As Netflix’s documentary highlights at its opening, it’s ‘one crazy story’, which centres on Kirat Assi, a British Sikh woman who works in marketing, is a successful local radio presenter, and lives in West London surrounded by friends and family. Because it is 2009, Facebook is at its height of cool, and Kirat is active on social media and has a circle of online friends. Facebook is also particularly great for keeping in touch with family overseas – so it doesn’t strike Kirat as suspicious when she receives a friend request from a man called Bobby. Bobby claims to be a distant relative of Kirat’s, and she recognises his name. They have mutual friends – including her cousin, Simran, who has met Bobby before in New York, and previously dated Bobby’s brother JJ – so she accepts. And thus begins a decade of deception.

Kirat and Bobby begin as friends chatting online. Their relationship gradually deepens as the pair talk more and more. His life is full of drama and crises, and Kirat is constantly navigating social media messages, texts and phone calls from Bobby. She feels close to him, closer still when he divulges personal issues with her, including a heart condition. By 2015, Kirat relies on their daily communication, offering Bobby emotional support and becoming increasingly entangled in his life, and the duo are in a romantic relationship. Despite having never met in person, Kirat feels emotionally committed to Bobby.

But all is not as it seems. Bobby has a dramatic life. In the time Kirat knows him, he suffers a stroke, is shot six times in Kenya, is put into witness protection in New York, has a heart attack, is diagnosed with a brain tumour and fathers a secret child. ‘How unlucky can one person be?’ Kirat asked herself. But Kirat and Bobby move in the same circles, so there’s always someone to validate his incredible stories, including Kirat’s cousin, Simran. And every time Kirat suggests they meet up, something blocks their path.

As their relationship continues, Bobby becomes increasingly controlling. He accuses Kirat of flirting with other men, discouraging her from socialising with friends or family. Kirat gets pains from the stress and is even signed off work for a while. ‘I started to lose weight,’ she says in the Netflix documentary. ‘It was coercive control, to a point where you’re thoroughly being abused, where you don’t have any sense of yourself left anymore. And you’re just scared all the time.’

Eventually, she hired a private detective, who confronted the real-life Bobby on the doorstep of his family home in Brighton. Was Kirat the other woman? Worse: Bobby had no idea who she was at all.

A still from Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare

Who Catfished Kirat In Sweet Bobby?

Kirat’s cousin Simran was the real person behind Kirat’s online relationship with Bobby. Over the course of a decade, Simran created around 60 Facebook profiles to keep up the ruse and validate Bobby’s wild stories, all the while fooling Kirat into believing she was in a relationship.

Simran confessed to this back in 2018, arriving on Kirat’s doorstep and divulging the news. Simran then moved on with her life, continuing in her high powered job and even getting engaged, while Kirat was left in her wake, reeling after a near-decade relationship turned out to be entirely falsified. Seeking justice, Kirat turned to the police…

Is Catfishing A Crime?

No, catfishing is not a crime in the UK, and this is one of the knotty issues at the heart of Sweet Bobby. Kirat was deceived, manipulated and coerced for almost a decade, believing she was in an online relationship with a cardiologist called Dr Bobby Jandu. But, of course, she wasn’t: she was being catfished by her cousin, Simran. And catfishing – using a fake online profile to trick someone into believing they are in an online relationship – is not illegal. Likewise, proving a psychological crime has been committed that doesn’t involve direct physical harm is very difficult.

In the UK, Simran hasn’t done anything wrong legally. That said, she has broken a plethora of social rules: catfishing, manipulation, deception – not least doing all of this to your cousin. Even though Kirat reported Simran to the police in 2018, no charges have ever been filed against the catfisher. Kirat hopes the documentary encourages victims to speak up. ‘All of us have been suffering in silence,’ she says.

What Does Simran Say?

Very little. Simran refused to speak on the Tortoise Media podcast, and also refused to be part of the Netflix documentary. Simran’s representatives told the producers: ‘This matter involves events that began when she was a schoolgirl. She considers it a private matter and strongly objects to what she describes as “numerous unfounded and damaging accusations”.’

Kirat has not seen Simran since the catfisher admitted to what she had done back in 2018.