The Tinder Swindler was released on February 2, 2022. Netflix
- Simon Leviev’s ex-girlfriend watched the documentary “Tinder Swindler” with him.
- She claimed to the BBC she also suffered emotional and financial abuse at the hands of Leviev.
- Konlin said she left Leviev after toxicity intensified in their relationship.
The ex-girlfriend of Simon Leviev, also known as “Tinder Swindler”, has told the BBC that she watched the documentary about her abusive boyfriend while sitting next to him.
Israeli model Kate Konlin told the BBC: “He has called every woman who spoke out against him a liar. He doesn’t want me to tell my story of emotional abuse.”
The 23-year-old has said her relationship with Leviev was “perfect” from the start, as was the relationship with the women who starred in the documentary Tinder Swindler.
“In the beginning our relationship was a love bomb,” Konlin told the BBC. “He was obsessed with me.”
She thought this should be true love.
However, the affectionate and affectionate relationship soon turned sour as Leviev – who was born Shimon Heyada Hayut – constantly criticized Konlin’s looks, clothes and weight.
She lost herself in the 18-month relationship, she told the BBC.
She said the relationship had become increasingly abusive, and Leviev had asked Konlin for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She told the BBC he owed her $150,000.
In a voice memo played to the BBC, Leviev yells at Konlin for money.
He reportedly said: “Kate, I’m a millionaire! And that’s a fact. I’m stuck at the moment. Do you understand? I am stuck! Do you understand that in your screwed up brain? This bird brain I’m stuck Kate. I didn’t steal you You gave it to me of your own free will. you lent it to me I’m stuck, that’s all.”
This echoes the events in the documentary “Tinder Swindler”, where Leviev cheated several women out of around $10 million. He continues to deny the allegations.
Konlin told the BBC that she watched the documentary while sitting on the couch next to Leviev, who controlled her and persuaded her to defend him.
“He told me, ‘If you stand up for me, people will believe me because you’re a woman,'” she told the BBC.
Konlin said she left Leviev after the toxicity in their relationship intensified and after he pushed her, which resulted in her injuring her foot and calling an ambulance.
As she got into the ambulance, Leviev filmed her and shouted that nothing happened to her. Konlin lodged a complaint with the police. Leviev denied ever having been physically violent towards a woman when the BBC questioned him about the incident.
Leviev was arrested and convicted in Finland in 2015 on charges of cheating on multiple women and served two years in prison.
He was also sentenced to 15 months in prison in Israel in December 2019, after fleeing the country twice in 2011 and 2017 to avoid charges of theft, forgery and fraud. Leviev served five of the 15 months leading up to his release in May 2020.
Despite being a convicted fraudster and many of his victims speaking out about the emotional and financial abuse they suffered at the hands of Leviev, he continues to have a huge following on social media.
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