True Story Media Presents: PRETEND

Nobody Should Believe Me

True Story Media

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, True Crime

4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the third installment of True Story Media Presents, Andrea sits down with Javier Leiva—host and creator of PRETEND. The two talk about how they first connected, their new partnership under True Story Media, and the overlapping themes in their work. They dig into the emotional toll of telling true crime stories, and Javier shares his path from local news and documentary filmmaking into the world of true crime podcasting, and how his show has become a space to unravel deception, trauma, and control. Javier also introduces listeners to one of his latest series: The Internet Saves the Bachelor. It follows former Bachelor star Clayton Echard as he’s pulled into a web of deception by Laura Owens—including a fabricated pregnancy that spiraled into chaos. *** Listen to PRETEND: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pretend/id1245307962 Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy. Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	True Story Media.
0:09.4	Hello, it's Andrea, and it is a big day over here because I know that so many of you are going to be excited about today's crossover.
0:17.4	Today, on our True Story Media presents series, we have none other than Javier Leva from Pretend,
0:24.9	who I know has many fans within the Nobody Should Believe Me audience.
0:29.2	Javier was one of my very first friends in the podcasting industry.
0:33.3	He has been a big supporter of the show from The Jump, and it is a genuine joy for me to announce that we're working together.
0:39.9	We're going to get into how we met in today's episode.
0:42.5	It's a pretty interesting story.
0:44.0	And he's also going to walk us through a really fascinating case.
0:47.4	Thank you for all of the feedback on these True Story Presents episodes.
0:51.1	We've got one more coming next week, and then we will be back to our regular
0:54.7	case files episodes. We're going to be talking about the Olivia Gant case. We're going to be
0:59.1	digging into Chronic Line. We're going to be talking about Kendra Licari and Munchausen by
1:03.9	internet. And, of course, we are still on our season six case, so we will be bringing you
1:08.9	updates from Michelle and Aunt Sabrina and
1:11.4	some other folks connected to that story. And in the meantime, we are currently working hard
1:17.0	in pre-production on season 7, which will be coming at you early in 2026, so stay tuned for more on
1:24.4	that. In the meantime, as always, if you want to support the show, the best way to
1:28.7	do that is by subscribing on Apple or on Patreon. We've got a lot of extra episodes there,
1:33.7	including our coverage of Netflix's unknown number, which approximately a bajillion of you asked
1:39.1	me about. Thank you, as always for listening. And with that, enjoy the show.
1:49.3	These are harrowing times in America, especially for our friends and neighbors in immigrant communities.
	...

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