Catfish: The TV Show stars Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford say the latest MTV season ventures into some of the most troubling territory the series has covered yet, with several cases involving staggering financial scams.
Schulman told Showbiz Cheat Sheet that while the new episodes still include some hopeful stories and satisfying resolutions, the stakes have grown noticeably higher. He said many people featured this season are sending larger sums of money and making major choices that are difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. “Things get a little kind of dark,” he said, questioning whether loneliness or desperation may be pushing people to overlook obvious warning signs.
Crawford agreed, noting that the upcoming season includes the largest amount of money the show has ever seen one person spend in a Catfish case. She added that, taken together, the money involved across the remaining episodes is significant enough that viewers may want to keep a running total. In her words, the amount spent could rival the cost of the show’s entire production.
‘Catfishing’ may be the same, but the game has changed this season, according to Nev and Kamie
According to the longtime Catfish hosts, online deception has intensified in recent years, fueled by pandemic-era isolation and rapidly evolving technology.
Schulman said the pandemic pushed many people to seek emotional connection online, including some who may not have considered virtual relationships before. He explained that those bonds often became deeply meaningful because so many people were navigating the same period of fear, loss and uncertainty.
For some, he said, internet friendships became vital support systems, especially for those grieving loved ones or struggling through isolation. Over time, those online connections developed into deeper attachments and, in some cases, romance. Now, a year or two later, many people are trying to find out whether those relationships are real.
Crawford said the pandemic may also have given people with bad intentions more time to refine their schemes. With so many people stuck at home and searching for connection, she suggested that scammers had more opportunities to build multiple online relationships at once — and to keep them going long after lockdowns ended. “I feel like it’s gotten worse,” she said.
New season of ‘Catfish: The TV Show’ begins on a heartbreaking note
The season premiere of Catfish: The TV Show opens with the emotional and unsettling story of Shi and Mira. In the episode, Shi tells Schulman and Crawford that he has avoided meeting people face-to-face and instead fallen for a woman he met online — before the situation takes a far more disturbing turn.
The woman Mira avoided meeting him and Crawford, and Schulman quickly got to the bottom of this catfish nightmare. It turns out the woman is not Mira, but instead, her name is Shiona – and she lives in the same city as Shi. She used a fake photo while communicating with Shi and then rejected him because he wasn’t “tall enough” for her.
But once Shiona starts giggling, Shi breaks down in tears. Crawford was stunned. “I never expected someone who sounds so loving and doting over text to be so mean in person,” she said about the shocking moment.
“Those things are always so weird to me. No matter what, if you’re in a situation where you know you’ve been lying or you haven’t been telling the full truth, coming with a certain level of humility is always welcome, and honestly, that’s the least you can do. So, when they don’t come with that, it’s always shocking,” Crawford added.
Nev may have saved a life on this new season of ‘Catfish’
“A positive outcome from that episode, which I don’t think is in it, was that the young man who we were helping never drank water at all. He just doesn’t like drinking water, he didn’t like the taste of it. And as a result, he finds himself often dehydrated to the point of hospitalization,” Schulman revealed.
“So I said, ‘Well, have you ever tried, like, flavored sparkling water?’ And he looked at me like I was an alien and didn’t know that that was a thing. And so I got him a case of LaCroix, which he drank the whole thing in like 10 hours. And now, fortunately, is a fan of sparkling water. So it may have saved his life.”
Catfish: The TV Show is on Tuesday night on MTV.
