A man who travelled nearly 500 miles to meet his ‘future wife’ was left shocked by the reality.
The 76-year-old had reportedly sent a whopping £25,000 to who he believed was Sophie Vouzelaud.
The French model was the first deaf or hard of hearing person to participate in the finals of a Miss France pageant, coming first runner-up back in 2007.
Now 38 years old, she was said to have comfortably been the leader in the public vote but did not win over the jury.
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And Michel drove 472 miles to meet her in France, having thought the pair had been in a romantic relationship for a number of weeks.
The Belgian showed up at Sophie’s home, only to be met by her actual husband, Fabien Boutamine.
He shared a video of the situation on Instagram as he approached Michel in Saint-Julien earlier this month.
“I have to film because there’s a guy who just rang my doorbell and he says ‘I’m the future husband of Sophie Vouzelaud’,” Fabien explained.
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“Well, I’m the current one. There’s going to be a confrontation.”
But after a bit of an awkward back and forth, Michel admitted that there might be something ‘wrong’ about what he’s been led to believe.
Michel thought he’d been speaking to Sophie on WhatsApp and sent her the money as a loan.
“I think she played a dirty trick on me,” he said as Fabien explained he’d likely been scammed by ‘fake accounts’.
Michel had been told she had been pregnant but later lost her baby, as Sophie said the misunderstanding ‘hurts my heart’. With the model pregnant in real life, her husband explained that ‘luckily’ she still is.
“I’m sorry sir … but the problem is that Sophie puts a lot of videos on [social media] networks to say to be careful not to get hurt,” Fabien said.
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“You must keep all the evidence and take it to the police,” she added to Michel.
And the Belgian deemed himself ‘an imbecile’ for falling for the romance scam.
Sophie wrote in the caption: “I feel so sorry for this man… Watch out for fake accounts, I’m sharing this video to show you it’s real and to be vigilant! Take care of yourself.”
It’s not clear if Michel has gone to the police over the situation as he had a long journey home ahead of him after mistakenly showing up at the beauty queen’s home.
Jess Battison