Master Manipulator and Commander: Trust Your Gut
3/5/202638 min
She thought she'd met the real deal: a decorated Navy officer, stationed at the Pentagon, opening hospitals in war zones. But what begins as a whirlwind romance slowly unravels into a portrait of compulsive deception. In the aftermath, this seasoned journalist is determined to get to the bottom of not just how and why her partner lied, but why she believed him.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJosh Dean· Host0:00
[crickets chirping] Campsite Media.
Abby Ellin· Guest0:03
Hello?
Josh Dean· Host0:05
What is this? So what do you want me to say? What the hell is going on here? Like, why- Oh, it's just a chameleon.
Speaker 20:11
Chameleon.
Abby Ellin· Guest0:12
Chameleon.
Josh Dean· Host0:12
Chameleon Weekly. Oh.
Abby Ellin· Guest0:13
[laughs] [phone beeping] Oh, the beginning. So this is going back a long time ago already. This is going back to 2000 and I wanna say eight, maybe right around the time you moved to Brooklyn. And, um, I- You're hearing a conversation I had recently with Abby Ellin ... I am a writer and journalist and podcast person, and, um, I was duped Abby's told the story you're about to hear before.
Josh Dean· Host0:41
It kills at dinner parties, and became the spine of a book she wrote that was published in 2019.
Abby Ellin· Guest0:47
The most interesting book on the subject that's out there, it's called Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and The Con Man I Almost Married. And it was all about this wacko who turned out to be a pathological liar and went to jail.
Josh Dean· Host1:03
It's classic chameleon, a con, a double life, and a person left trying to make sense of it all. And this one feels particularly familiar. If you've been listening to this show, the signs will be easy to spot from the start. [upbeat music] And like so many of these stories, the entry point is innocent, charming, romantic.
Abby Ellin· Guest1:22
I was doing an article for The New York Times, for whom I write, and, um, it was about