Where is Amanda Riley now? Subject of Scamanda documentary

In 2023, British broadcaster and journalist Charlie Webster made a global chart-topping podcast called Scamanda, which told the story of Amanda Riley, a young Californian wife, mother and devout Christian who documented her cancer battle on her blog.

Instagram was in its infancy and bloggers were the ultimate influencers in 2012 when Riley began documenting her condition. Riley’s medical plight – she said she had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma – was, however, entirely fabricated.

Over several years, Riley defrauded hundreds of donors for more than $100,000, until a whistleblower sent an anonymous tip-off to an investigator. She was charged with wire fraud in 2020 and sentenced, in 2022, to five years in prison.

For Webster, it was important to highlight more than the lie. “I wanted to showcase manipulative behaviour and narcissism, which is something I’ve experienced in my own life,” she says.

The podcast, which features those closest to Riley and pieced together how and why she chose to deceive so many, was adapted into a four-part TV docuseries on Disney+, that is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

One notable absentee from the series is Riley’s stepdaughter Jessa, who had previously told the podcast what it was like to grow up believing her stepmother had cancer, only to discover it was all a lie – and the traumatic impact that had on her mental health.

Webster’s own understanding of childhood trauma – she released the 2023 BBC documentary To Run: Abused by Our Coach about her experiences at an all-girls’ running club – helped her to communicate with Jessa.

But Jessa felt it would be too much to return for the TV docuseries: “She felt like she’d said her peace and she didn’t need to repeat it in a different form,” Webster says.

True-crime “scammer” narratives are currently popular on screen, including Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar, starring Kaitlyn Dever and based on the story of Belle Gibson, a health influencer who falsely claimed to have cured brain cancer using alternative therapies and nutrition.

Both Scamanda and Apple Cider Vinegar tell stories of women who lie about a disease they do not have.

Webster believes that women like Belle Gibson and Amanda Riley are more complex than a simple “scammer” narrative would have us believe, and we are drawn to their stories because, on some level, we have experiences that allow us to relate to them.

“These scam stories… these manipulation stories are so relatable in our lives,” she says. “That’s why I think they’re so fascinating to watch, because it shows the complexity of this narcissistic behaviour, which sadly isn’t rare…”

Webster believes Riley’s “scam” wasn’t about money: “It was about attention and validation and being seen as something and somebody, which, I think, on a very low level, we see a lot through social media.”

Riley herself does not appear in the docuseries. “I told her ‘Maybe this is an opportunity for you to explain why, to say sorry,’ but after a lot of back and forth she decided it was important for her to serve her sentence out [and not participate]….”

“Amanda did give me a message, though.” This showed Riley’s desperation to insist that her family were not involved in her “scam”, and also admit responsibility for what she had done. “She said to me that she was sorry and was accountable for what she did.”

So, three years on from the launch of the Scamanda podcast, the docuseries tries to answer two questions: is Riley truly sorry for what she did, and why did she do it in the first place? “Maybe we’ll never quite know the full ‘why’s,” Webster says. “But [my podcast] was about showcasing a very complicated psychological situation.”

For Webster, the docuseries must be a tribute to Riley’s victims. She adds, touchingly : “I want to honour the podcast listeners, because they made it what it is today.”

Scamanda is available to watch on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer now.

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