Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara

What is the price of fame?

When an unknown person pretending to be Tegan Quin started tormenting Tegan and Sara fans, our management office at Amelia Artists, and Tegan herself, the cost wasn't just our privacy – it was our sense of safety and security.

The new HULU documentary Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara dives into a haunting true crime story that we lived almost every day during Tegan and Sara’s ascent to fame. As an artist manager who was compelled by circumstance to moonlight as an amateur detective, dealing with Fake Tegan (or "Fegan" as Sara eventually coined) made for some of the most challenging days of my career. At a time when we should have been riding high from Tegan and Sara's first cluster of gold record certifications and JUNO nominations, behind the scenes we were grappling with an invisible and insidious nightmare.

When the real Tegan told me that acclaimed documentarians Erin Lee Carr and Jenny Eliscu (Britney vs. Spears) wanted to tell the Fake Tegan story to the world for the first time, we dove into our archives from that foreboding era, including thousands of chilling emails dating back to 2009. I felt renewed worry as Tegan thought about sharing the unsolved saga publicly, but we knew the lessons learned were more pressing than ever. Our story took place during the nascent years of social media, and we now live in an even more susceptible world where AI and deep fakes further push the boundaries of illicit impersonation.

We therefore hope this documentary is both educational and forewarning. We also hope it brings closure to the many violated fans who were tricked into quasi-romantic online relationships by Fake Tegan. I had the difficult responsibility of communicating with some of these victims during the height of the insanity from 2011 to 2015, and their pain and confusion were palpable.

I hope it brings some acknowledgement for Tegan herself as well. She has quietly lived with the helpless dread of being impersonated online by a nefarious actor, creating a chilling alternate universe that has unavoidably affected her relationship to the world, both as a public figure and a private citizen. Everyone in the real Tegan and Sara universe owes their thanks to her and Sara for having continued forward in everything they do – from music, to books, to films, to philanthropy – even in the face of a potentially unknown danger. 

Lastly, I want to thank all the people who helped navigate this ordeal over many years: my colleagues at Amelia Artists (Kim Persley, Chris Hibbins, Tyson Yerex, Nick Blasko); our legal team who assisted us in understanding our potential paths of action (Patrick Aldous, David Ferreria); our task force of ad hoc internet security consultants; all the Tegan and Sara crew and band members who were affected by protective measures we instituted; the teams at HULU and Story Syndicate who have helped bring this story to light cautiously and tastefully; and finally Christine Stauder and Kevin Morris at Red Light, who oversee the ongoing ripple effects of Fake Tegan to this day.

Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara made its worldwide premiere as an Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival. It begins streaming on HULU (Disney+ in Canada and rest of world) on October 18. Watch the trailer below and get ready for what HULU tellingly calls "a thriller, a caper, a whodunnit, and an intimate personal journey rolled into one."