Apple TV Plus’ Hollywood Con Queen trailer teases Tiger King creator’s new docuseries about the movie industry’s biggest scam
Sometimes stories really are stranger than fiction
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Apple TV Plushas just released the trailer forHollywood Con Queen, a true-life series with a story that’s stranger than any fiction.
The show is based on an investigation by Hollywood Reporter journalist Scott Johnson, who discovered an audacious con that was targeting creative people from the film industry.
The person behind the con, Hargobind Tahilramani, successfully impersonated some of Hollywood’s most powerful moguls, tricking people into traveling to Indonesia and then getting them to pay “expenses” that they’d be able to claim back. The sums were huge, and of course the money never arrived.
And that isn’t the weird bit.
What makes Hollywood Con Queen such a strange story?
Hargobind Tahilramani, aka Gobind Tahil, didn’t stick to impersonating just one gender. He often pretended to be a Hollywood hot-shot’s male assistant before transferring the call to the female mogul, who he also impersonated. According toVanity Fair, in addition to the financial fraud he also lured some of his male victims into performing phone sex.
It’s a fascinating story that made for fascinating journalism – and which will soon be made into a film. But there’s one detail about the production that’s raising a bit of a red flag for me, and that’s the team behind it. It’s been made by Emmy winner Chris Smith and Library Films, who you may recall from a little documentary calledTiger King. They also made100 Foot Wave,Fyre –one of thebest Netflix documentaries–Bad Veganand others.
They’re a very successful team, of course, but watchingTiger Kingin particular I often felt like I was being manipulated, that it was more reality TV than documentary and that it was lacking in empathy. Given the potentially salacious and embarrassing details of some of the crimes here, I hope the film-makers have treated the victims and their stories with respect.
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Hollywood Con Queenpremieres onAppleTV Plus on May 8, 2024.
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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