Catfish has been on the air for eight seasons as host Nev Schulman and co-host Max Joseph (Kamie Crawford for the latest season eight), have helped people looking for love discover if their online romantic interests are actually who they say they are. A catfish is a person who connects with someone online, pretending to be someone they're not. The signs are often pretty clear: they always have an excuse for not meeting in person, they don't video chat, sometimes won't even talk on the phone. If the person seems too good to be true, they probably are. And this is what Nev and Max try to help victims uncover, then act as mediators to make peace between the catfish-er and the catfish-ee so they can move on and become better people.
Through the series, there have been a few instances where people fooled even Nev and Max, and some cases where they outright lied to get on TV. Here are 10 times the hosts were totally tricked, too.
10 Vince And Alyssa
Vince told Nev and Max that a woman he had been in an online "relationship" with broke his heart then stalked him and his now real-life girlfriend, causing their breakup. Nev and Max felt bad for Vince until they discovered the truth.
Not only was Vince still willingly talking to the girl (who was indeed a catfish), but he was flirting with her and even sending sexually suggestive messages. Vince was upset at being called out and didn't go back for the second visit with the catfisher. His IRL girlfriend also gave him the boot, for good, despite his efforts to get her back.
9 Hundra, Emily/Melanie, And Geralyn
Technically, Hundra tricked Nev and Machine Gun Kelly, who was filling in for Max as a guest host while the filmmaker took time off to finish a project. Hundra presented herself to the pair as a Haitian woman who was having a difficult time coming out to her traditional family as gay, which is why she resorted to trying to meet other women online. They felt compassion for her situation.
But after a roundabout turn of events, they learned that Hundra and two other women contrived the entire plan in order to get on television. Needless to say, Nev and Machine Gun Kelly were not impressed at the trickery, but mostly disappointed in Hundra for using her sexuality as a vehicle for deception.
8 Paris And Mary
It all depends on who you believe, but Mary claims that Paris had an online relationship with her when they were teens and even convinced Mary to relocate, along with her mother and son, to move in. Turns out, however, Paris' mom wasn't exactly open to houseguests and the miscommunication left Mary with no other option than to move into a homeless shelter.
In retaliation, Mary catfished Paris for years as someone else. But the joke was on Nev and Max, too, as Paris conveniently left out the part of the story where she had been a catfish before as well!
7 Whitney And Bre
The two contacted the show under the guise that they had been in a long-term online relationship but one suspected the other of being a catfish. Through their online sleuthing, however, Nev and Max figured out that not only was this untrue, but the pair had been in a real-life relationship for some time.
They admitted that they conned the show in an attempt to get free plane tickets to see one another. It all makes for good TV, after all, and Nev and Max controversially still let them meet anyway.
6 Ramon And Loyda
While some aspects of the show are admittedly suspect, the bare bones about someone being a catfish and another being their victim are always true. Well, most of the time. In this episode, Ramon eventually confessed to having seen Loyda, pretending to be Paola, on webcam several times.
In other words, he already knew who his catfish was. But why waste a good opportunity? There's no harm in a little pretending if it leads to 15 minutes of fame, right?
5 Joanna And Bo
After "meeting" online, Joanna, who had newly discovered her true sexuality, formed a strong bond with Bo. They decided to meet in Las Vegas but when Joanna cancelled last minute, she suggested her friend Ana who was in town could meet up and hang out for a bit. Ana did come around and they hooked up!
While trying to figure out Bo's real identity, Nev and Max suspected it could have been Ana all along. They confronted Ana and she swore up and down it wasn't her, pointing out that she has no issues meeting women in real life under her own identity. But a day later, Ana did a complete 180 and admitted that it was all a lie. She tricked them because she wasn't ready to tell the truth just yet.
4 Kristen And Tiffany
One of the newer episodes, this one actually featured new co-host Kamie along with Nev, not Max, who left the show for season eight. It was also a unique format conducted entirely over video chat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kristen was recently divorced and trying Facebook dating with women for the first time. When Nev's methods to discover the true identity of the woman Kristen's cousin was sure was a catfish, it wound up leading him to Kirsten's best friend Tiffany. She was quite helpful, tipping him off to an obsessed co-worker who might be the culprit. Until they called her again and surprise! Tiffany revealed that she was actually the catfish all along, dishing out sweet revenge for Kristen having catfished her years prior!
3 Dre And Casey
Dre was arguably one of the most despicable people featured on the show, openly discussing how he could not be tied down to one woman and disrespecting his girlfriend and the mother of his child in the process. But he got what was coming to him.
Not only were Nev and Kami fooled (this is another new season episode without Max), but Dre was completely blindsided by…his own sister! She was the one secretly catfishing him in hopes of forcing him to change his cheating ways. She even kept the ruse up for part of the video call by having another young woman pretend to be Casey for the first few minutes before she stepped into the frame to yell "Gotcha!"
2 Danny And Rosa
One of the most memorable episodes of the show was when Danny believed he had been talking for years to a beautiful woman named Rosa. They had even spoken on the phone, though they had never met in person.
After it was revealed that Rosa was actually Jose, the gay man showed Nev and Max how he was able to fool Danny, and even them, by faking a flawless woman's voice. Spoiler alert: Jose was struck with some serious karma years later when he appeared again on another episode of the show, this time on the other side of the coin as he was being catfished.
1 Brittany And Bryon
Brittany was a single mother of three trying to somehow find time to date. And that involved lengthy chats online and on the phone with a supposed Marine named Bryon. Things seemed suspect from the get-go but Brittany was convinced the man was real, as was his PTSD, gentle nature, and genuine interest in her and her children.
Turns out, however, that Bryon was actually Heather, a 25-year-old lesbian woman who was posing as a man on the phone. When Nev first got Heather on the phone, she tricked him into thinking she was Bryon's sister. He wasn't fooled for long, though.