A transgender drag queen who appeared on MTV’s dating show Catfish has opened up about her “traumatizing” experience filming for the popular series, revealing how she was “humiliated” by producers who helped throw her into the center of a 20-year revenge plot. in progress.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Sham Ibrahim revealed gruesome behind-the-scenes details about what it was really like to film for the show, days after its dramatic episode aired, revealing how it ended in a shouting match with the host. Nev Schulman and had a physical fight with someone on set.
Sham’s Catfish’s nightmare began after he contacted the MTV show, in which hosts Nev, 38, and Kamie Crawford, 30, help people who are involved in online relationships with partners. that they have never met. The hosts play amateur detectives who help determine whether romances are real or fake.
For Sham, that romance was with a man named Phillip, whom she met on Snapchat. Phillip was, as far as Sham was concerned, attractive and well spoken, and she was excited to see where the relationship could go in the future.
A transgender contestant on Catfish has opened up about her hellish experience filming the popular MTV dating show
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Sham Ibrahim revealed horrific behind-the-scenes details about the filming of the show, which is hosted by Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford.
Sham ended up in a galling on-air confrontation with an old acquaintance who had created a catfishing Snapchat account to get back at her for sleeping with her ex-lover.
After hearing about Phillip de Sham, a friend approached the producers of Catfish, hoping to prove that Philip was who he claimed to be. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.
In fact, it turned out that Phillip was an old acquaintance of Sham’s named Mike, who dreamed up the entire romance online as part of a vicious revenge scheme to get back at Sham for going on a date with his ex-lover 20 years ago.
Mike’s cruel prank was revealed during Sham’s episode of the show, which aired last week, with Catfish cameras capturing the horrific moment when Mike gleefully revealed himself as ‘Phillip’.
The moment, which was featured in the episode, showed Sham horrified and gaping in shock as Mike bragged about his scam, telling her, “You always wanted a prince.” Well, here I am.
It’s me, your old friend Mike. I’m Felipe. I did it all, of course I did.
He continued: ‘I told you I was going to get you back, girl. I told you. You stole my boyfriend in Mexico. I told you, I said, “Don’t take my boyfriend.” And you took it anyway. You are bad and you are a whore.
I told you that I would get you back. You can’t get rid of a friend who has been with you for 20 years.’
Although the show captured the galling confrontation between Sham and Mike, she says the cameras stopped rolling before things really turned sour, admitting that she ended up throwing Mike into the pool outside the house where they met, a moment that not make it to the final episode.
While Sham’s onscreen confrontation with his former friend was humiliating, he says things were worse behind the scenes and admits he ended up in a physical altercation with him.
Sham also confessed that she got into a shouting match with the presenter Nev, 38 (center), because she was convinced that he knew she was being cheated on.
Sham says that she also ended up in a shouting match with host Nev, who surmised that he was deliberately trying to “humiliate” her on camera by helping Mike carry out his revenge plan.
“I got into a huge shouting match and argument with Nev,” Sham told DailyMail.com. “Basically, I thought that he knew that Mike was a person that I knew and that he was trying to put me down.”
However, Sham later learned that Nev was clueless about Mike’s true identity, adding, “Nev was clueless.” I’ve done over a dozen reality shows. The difference between this one is that it’s not actually scripted at all. It is 100 percent reality.
While the gritty take on the series on reality TV certainly makes for exciting viewing, Sham says it made his experience filming the show a misery.
“The show really had no direction and I wasn’t allowed to film reruns,” he explained.
‘There was no hair or makeup either. This is also part of his effort to make it as real as possible.
“I’m still very traumatized.”
“At a time when transgender rights are being stripped away, Nev took the time to really understand me,” says Sham (seen in a selfie with Nev and Kamie).
Sham was also given very little opportunity to prepare to turn on the camera, revealing that the cameras appeared at his house unannounced just a day after he sent ‘Phillip’s’ Snapchat messages.
“25 cameras showed up at my house without warning,” he recalled. “This was the day after I sent a copy of a Snapchat I got from who I thought was Phillip.”
Regardless, Sham isn’t crying over the split milk and tells DailyMail.com that she managed to find a silver lining in the whole situation: the fact that Catfish and her producers were accepting of both her and the trans community.
‘You can clearly see that I am transgender from outer space. This has made dating in my life extremely difficult because so many don’t get it,” Sham tells DailyMail.com.
“At a time when the rights of transgender people are being stripped, everyone made a concerted effort to make me feel accepted. Nev took the time to really understand me. This meant a lot to me.
“If everyone put in half the effort that the Catfish team did, the understanding and acceptance of transgender people would change.”