Kira Cousins, 22, apologised on social media, admitted she was not pregnant and that “there was no baby” and said she “made it up and kept it going way too far”
Anders Anglesey News Reporter
08:57, 22 Oct 2025
The woman at the centre of a fake pregnancy scandal has admitted ‘there was no baby'(Image: UGC)
A woman at the centre of a fake baby scandal has addressed the incident that stunned social media, saying: “I’m so sorry.”
Kira Cousins, 22, has been accused of attempting to convince her loved ones and friends into believing her plastic Reborn doll was her daughter, who she named Bonnie-Leigh Joyce. She is also alleged to have worn a prosthetic bump for months before pretending to give birth alone.
But opening up on the incident on Tuesday, she wrote: “I’m so sorry.” In the now deleted Instagram story, she said: “I wasn’t pregnant. There was no baby. I made it up and kept it going way too far, reports The Daily Record.
“I faked scans, messages, a whole birth story, and acted like a doll was a real baby. I know how bad it is, I f***** up. I just didn’t know how to stop once I started.
Kira Cousins used a reborn doll to dupe people into believing she had a baby. She then pretended it had died
“I don’t have a proper excuse. I wasn’t in a good headspace, but that doesn’t make what I did okay. I know this is gonna stick with me for a long time and that I’ve probably lost friends I’ll never get back.
“I’m trying to figure myself out and get help because this version of me isn’t someone I want to be. I know I’ve ruined a lot of trust and that “sorry” won’t fix everything but it’s all I can say right now.”
Kira, from Airdrie, in Scotland, also apologised to all of her loved-ones. She continued: “I’m so sorry. You were there for me through it all. You cried happy tears, picked me up, brought me places, believed everything I said.
“You didn’t deserve to be lied to like that. None of you did. Everyone who came to the gender reveal, all the people who gave me gifts or support – I f****d up and I hurt a lot of people. And to everyone I made look bad along the way – the dad and his family especially – I’m sorry.
Kira even held a gender reveal party for the fake baby(Image: UGC)
“I made you out to be horrible people when really, I was the one in the wrong. Completely.” Kira then defended people who went on to believe the doll was real.
She added: “In everyone else’s defence, the doll could move. You could change the facial features, arms and legs. You could feed the doll, making it ‘pee or poo’.
“So when no one is close to the doll, it does look real. No one was looking at my ‘baby’ expecting it to be a doll.”
Kira posted the images of baby scans and videos of her lavish gender reveal party in the weeks leading up to the supposed “birth”. Alongside this, she uploaded footage of the “baby” kicking in her stomach, a series of pictures of clothes for newborns as well as items loved ones bought, such as a £1,000 pram (approximately €1,150) and a car seat.
“No one was looking at my ‘baby’ expecting it to be a doll,” Kira said(Image: UGC)
She also shared posts about hospital appointments and claimed ante-natal tests had picked up a heart defect in her supposed baby. A friend of Kira’s family, who asked not to be named. described Kira as a “liar,” adding: “I have known her for 10 years and she has lied about all sorts.”
Reborn dolls, such as the one Kira used, sell for between £30 and £2,000 (approximately €35 – €2,300) and are designed to look like real-life babies.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
Follow the 2025 presidential race every step of the way with our politics newsletter
The Irish Mirror will be following the Irish presidential race every step of the way. Sign up here for our politics newsletter, Party Lines, and get news, analysis and top stories from the campaign trail direct to your inbox.