Inside the Fake Celebrity Podcast Scam Fooling Hollywood

When Seth Rudetsky received an invitation to appear on Nikki Glaser’s podcast, he had no particular reason to think it wasn’t real. Rudetsky, the Broadway performer and SiriusXM host, gets asked to do podcasts all the time.

“Oh my God, they’re actually paying for a podcast,” he remembers thinking. A Glaser fan, Rudetsky quickly said yes.

What Happened

And he is not the only recognizable Hollywood figure who fell for it. Bruce Vilanch believed Terry Gross wanted him on Fresh Air.

• Better yet, this one was offering him between $4,000 and $5,000 to appear.

• “You just feel bad because you feel like a schmuck and because you’ve been duped,” he says.

• Vilanch mostly remembers the embarrassment of realizing he’d been taken.

Key Details

The correspondence that followed was equally persuasive, laying out the subjects the person identifying themselves as Gross intended to discuss with him, demonstrating what appeared to be deep, actual knowledge of Vilanch’s work. The explanation was tailored to the moment: NPR was.

• These days he sometimes entertains himself by engaging the scammers to see how far they’ll go, despite being warned that even replying may simply confirm that his email address belongs to an active target.

• Rudetsky says the fraudulent invitations continue to arrive.

• No, she replied, she hadn’t invited him onto her podcast.

Why It Matters

Vilanch found the request strange, but by then the correspondence had established enough credibility that he decided to contribute. But the scammers didn’t disappear after getting his money.

• Rudetsky actually knows Poehler, so this time he employed the most reliable authentication technology available: He asked Amy Poehler.

• Not long afterward, another invitation arrived, this time supposedly from Amy Poehler’s podcast.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by The Hollywood Reporter as more details emerge