Summary

• Nev Schulman, known for exposing catfish on MTV, was actually catfished himself a second time in 2018 during a Twitter encounter.
• Despite his own catfishing experience, Nev continued on to help others and expose online imposters through his show, Catfish.
• The authenticity of MTV's Catfish has been questioned, with viewers wondering if some aspects of the show may be scripted or exaggerated.

Nev Schulman is known for exposing "catfish" on MTV's reality series Catfish: The TV Show, so it may come as a surprise to learn that Nev was catfished a second time in his adult life. Fans of the tv host / producer know that Nev's experiences in 2010 with Angela Wesselman spawned the Catfish documentary movie and subsequent MTV series.

From there, Nev made it his mission to help others in similar situations and expose people pretending to be someone else online. Unfortunately, Nev fell victim to being catfished once again years after the world learned about the original "catfish" story and Nev had become famous.

Nev Was Catfished Again On Twitter Even After MTV Show Was Popular

During 2018's Season 7, Episode 21 of Catfish, Nev shared with his guest host, Nick Young, that he went through another catfish experience a few years back while trying to increase his Twitter following.

Nev explained he saw another Twitter account with a lot of followers who had been engaging with him on the social media platform, and he began talking with her, since he was single at the time and the Twitter user seemed "kind of cute and funny."

Nick, with his iconic "questioning" face, asked Nev, "So, you got Catfished again?" To which Nev went on to explain, that he ended up hiring the woman because she was so good at social media, and he wanted to increase his following. The user was going to work for Nev, running his social media accounts.

To move things along, Nev shared a "one-time password" to his Twitter account so she could see who was following him and gain access to his Twitter. Nev came to realize the woman was not who he thought she was one night when he saw he had a direct message on Twitter from a man.

"So I go to it, and it's from a guy I've never seen before."

"So what I didn't know was that she would meet guys on her own page. And then, if they ever asked her, 'How do I know you're real?' She'd send them a message as me. Then confirm. And then she would delete it right away. So, she was clearing her messages right under my nose. For months."

Nev shared his embarrassing real moment of being catfished a second time while trying to figure out who that particular episode's catfish was with Nick. As a woman named Sheila believed she was being romanced by Love and Hip Hop star Rich Dollaz, Nev argued maybe he shared his password with someone else and forgot, and that person was catfishing as the music executive.

Why Nev Created MTV's Catfish

Nev Schulman and the term "catfish" go hand-in-hand these days, but there was once a time, years before Nev coined "catfish" and gave the word a meaning that is used all over the internet, that Nev experienced his own messed up fate of deception and manipulation.

Between 2007 and 2010, Nev was trying to navigate his own twisted story of discovering that a 19-year-old woman he had strong feelings for was not actually real and that he had been communicating with someone entirely different.

In 2007, Nev became friends with an "eight-year-old girl named Abby on MySpace" who began painting portraits of Nev after seeing his photograph in newspaper. Over the course of their friendly relationship, Nev began talking to Abby's mother, Angela, and Abby's older sister, Megan, as well as many others from "their inner circle". For seven months, the Catfish host continued speaking with Megan over the phone and through text, really growing a stronger bond with her through their online relationship.

"She was smoking hot, unbelievably sexy... super beautiful," Nev admitted in an interview with 20/20 in 2010. "[I] was opening up to Megan in ways that [I] had not with actual girlfriends."

Nev soon came to learn that Megan never existed, and he had been talking to the much older wife and mother, Angela Wesselman, the whole time, as is revealed in the 2010 Catfish documentary, which was filmed by Nev's brother Ariel Schulman and friend Henry Joost.

Nev's own experience inspired the MTV reality show, since he knew that there were probably many others out there being misled and tricked into believing in an identity that was not real.

Catfish is now in it's ninth season, and while the show's premise remains the same - expose the catfish and attempt to get them to see the error of their ways - the series holds a much more special meaning for Nev that keeps him continuing Catfish. In an interview with PopCulture, Nev shared how the experience has changed over the years.

I genuinely love doing this... getting to travel, meet people, and now, more often than not, younger people who are at very formative points in their life and share a little bit of my experience, and by no means lecture because I don't claim to be any sort of Guru or expert on anything, but to be able to just say, 'Hey look, here's something I've noticed' or 'here's something I've noticed about you that's really positive that maybe you hadn't had anyone point out before,' and just encourage them and hopefully guide them towards making their own decisions that are going to help them better, you know, rather than what I assume a lot of people are used to which is very prescriptive, 'oh this is what you should be doing.'"

The term "catfish" took on the meaning of someone impersonating a false persona online after Nev Schulman's documentary and television show were named Catfish. In the Catfish documentary, Vince Pierce, the husband to Nev's original catfish, explains how some people are like catfish in that they keep you on your toes.

"They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They'd keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile..."

"And there are those people who are catfish in life."

"And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have somebody nipping at our fin."

Since MTV's Catfish series premiered in November 2012, Nev has filmed210 episodes of Catfish.

Is MTV's Catfish Still Authentic?

Catfish is a reality show, and as with many reality shows, things are often exaggerated or dramatized for entertainment purposes. With each new season of Catfish viewers began questioning whether the MTV show was scripted and fake.

During each episode of Catfish, viewers see someone who suspects they're being catfished reach out to Nev for help. In reality, the actual catfish sometimes reaches out to production wanting to come clean.

Nev addressed this controversy in a 2014 Reddit AMA thread, where he explained, "So basically, if a catfish contacts us because they want to come clean, one of our casting producers simply reaches out to the other person involved and very simply says that the person they are in a relationship with has expressed an interest in meeting them, and if they are interested in pursuing that, would they please send an email to Nev (aka me) describing their relationship and what it would mean to them if they finally got a chance to meet. It's pretty simple."

Other production aspects, including Nev knowing where the catfish lives and production knowing the final outcome before each episode is filmed, have viewers questioning if anything is authentic about Catfish.

When asked if Nev was ever worried about MTV pressuring him to increase the "shock factor" for Catfish as the series continues to expand, Nev answered, "It's a concern for sure, but I simply wont engage with the show if I feel it has become inauthentic or over the top."