Pick of the podcasts

Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen

Being known as the land of opportunity, Hollywood became a Mecca for thousands of hopefuls chasing their dreams.

The lucky few make it, most don’t, and many are now being exploited by a crook known as the Hollywood Con Queen.

Leslie, Wendi Murdoch,

Wei Yang, Aaron, Dee Bakish, Gerald Tan, Christina, Mrs Ong, Deborah Snyder – these are just a handful of the aliases the Hollywood Con Queen has used to promise victims life-changing career opportunities, only for it to be uncovered as a web of lies.

In this new eight-part series, investigative journalists Josh Dean and Vanessa Grigoriadis attempt to track down the culprit, by meeting some of the victims and examining the scam’s inner workings, taking listeners on a journey from LA to Jakarta to the UK.

The Hollywood Con Queen has, for more than six years, impersonated powerful female film producers to prey on ambitious up-and-comers in the movie industry. The scam has fooled actors, make-up artists, screenwriters, personal trainers and security guards.

The pedigree of the reporting duo here promises good things. Josh Dean’s first podcast, The Clearing, was the No. 1 podcast in the world for more than two months, and he has written for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and GQ.

Vanessa Grigoriadis is a contributor to Vanity Fair and The New York Times magazine. Her podcast, Tabloid: The Making Of Ivanka Trump, was described by Variety as “a must-listen”.

Josh said:“vanessa and I have both investigated con artists, but we’ve never encountered a scam as perplexing. The Hollywood Con Queen’s highly specific trail of deception has led us down a bizarre rabbit hole to find the culprit.

“There are a lot of mysteries in Hollywood, but this is one of the great ones.”