{"id":278857,"date":"2025-07-21T02:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278857\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T02:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:29:15","slug":"man-travels-500-miles-to-meet-beauty-queen-and-future-wife-then-grim-truth-unravels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/278857\/","title":{"rendered":"Man travels 500 miles to meet beauty queen and &#8216;future wife&#8217; &#8211; then grim truth unravels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beauty queen Sophie Vouzeland was left stunned when a pensioner turned up to her home in France claiming to be her &#8216;future husband&#8217;. Her real husband delivered a shattering truth<\/p>\n<p>17:20, 20 Jul 2025Updated 23:27, 20 Jul 2025<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1_Man-travels-500-miles-to-meet-beauty-queen-he-thought-hed-marry-then-grim-truth-unravels.jpg\" alt=\"The man thought he was going to meet fakous model Sophie Vouzeland\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>The man thought he was going to meet fakous model Sophie Vouzeland(Image: Instagram\/sophievouzelaud_off\/boutaflex)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A man who thought he had fallen head over heels for a beauty queen was left shocked after he travelled almost 500 miles to meet her and realised he had been catfished.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Michel, 76, from <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/all-about\/belgium\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"BelgiumLink opens in a new tab.\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Belgium<\/a>, thought he was about to meet the &#8216;love of his life,&#8217; famous model Sophie Vouzeland. But when he arrived at her home in Saint-Julien, France, he was greeted by her husband, Fabien.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The besotted pensioner declared he was her &#8220;future husband&#8221;, and was stunned when the homeowner responded: &#8220;Well, I&#8217;m the current one.&#8221; Michel was under the belief that he had been speaking to the 2007 Miss France runner-up on <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/all-about\/whatsapp\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"WhatsAppLink opens in a new tab.\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">WhatsApp<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/cruel-romance-scammer-stole-22000-34811241\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8216;Cruel romance scammer stole \u00a322,000 of my life savings &#8211; the betrayal tore me to bits&#8217;<\/a>Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">He was convinced that their connection was real and had even sent a staggering <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/money\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"\u00a325,000Link opens in a new tab.\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a325,000<\/a> as a loan to the woman he believed to be Sophie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The couple posted a heartbreaking video of the moment on social media, sharing their conversation with the victim in the hopes that others will be more prepared to spot a romance scam. In the clip, Michel said: &#8220;I think she played a dirty trick on me. I am an imbecile.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">He went on to show Fabien their text exchange. &#8220;My wife, no, it&#8217;s the fake accounts,&#8221; stressed Fabien. &#8220;You have to be very careful.&#8221; He posted the video on<a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/all-about\/instagram\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\" Instagram Link opens in a new tab.\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\"> Instagram <\/a>with the caption: &#8220;I feel so sorry for this man. Watch out for fake accounts. I&#8217;m sharing this video to show you it\u2019s real and to be vigilant! Take care of yourself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_Rencontres-Et-Partage-Entre-Specialistes-du-7-eme-Art-Galerie-Art-Generation-Hosted-by-AK2A-Agenc..webp\" alt=\"Sophie and Fabien\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/>Sophie and Fabien said the stranger turned up to their house (Image: WireImage)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Sophie, who is expecting a baby with Fabien, said the incident &#8220;hurts my heart&#8221;. Social media users have since responded to the scam and said it is &#8220;scary&#8221; that people knew their address. One person said: &#8220;Let us all be vigilant! Fake accounts and scams suck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Another commented: &#8220;Poor Sophie in the middle of this being pregnant. Fingers crossed this doesn&#8217;t happen again and ends well. Cheer up to both of you.&#8221; In response, Sophie said in the comment section: &#8220;Thank you, it&#8217;s not easy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1_Salon-Du-Chocolat-2023-Chocolate-Fair-At-Parc-des-Expositions-De-La-Porte-de-Versailles.jpg\" alt=\"Sophie said she felt 'hurt' for the man \" loading=\"lazy\"  \/>Sophie said she felt &#8216;hurt&#8217; for the man (Image: WireImage)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">A third person wrote: &#8220;Oh crazy what a story! poor gentleman. It&#8217;s horrible to know that there are still people scamming people. I hope it won&#8217;t happen again and that you can live your life peacefully.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Another person said: &#8220;The danger of social networks. But I&#8217;m surprised how he could get your address. It&#8217;s absolutely not normal.&#8221; Someone else chimed in: &#8220;And he had the address. This is scary.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beauty queen Sophie Vouzeland was left stunned when a pensioner turned up to her home in France claiming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[188,459,12,9968,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-278857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-instagram","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-scams","12":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114888872169026845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}