Bow Wow Catfish? Does Bow Wow love Catfish?
Catfish: The TV Show has built its reputation on twisted tales of love, friendship, and the Internet, some crazier than others. Hosts Nev Schulman and Max Joseph travel the country to connect two people who have a relationship — but have never met in person. This week’s episode features Keyonnah, a young woman, who believes she has been in contact with 106 & Park host and rapper Bow Wow. (Yup, that Bow Wow.) They met when the 19-year-old single mom messaged a Bow Wow fan page on Facebook. Now, they text and talk on the phone, even discussing starting a life together with their children. “Bow Wow” has even sent her over $10,000 throughout the months of their correspondence. A love story this bizarre must be true…right?
Let’s go with Keyonnah being that delusional, at least for the sake of evaluating what the show was trying to do (as we’ve done all season despite skepticism of its honesty). Essentially, she has no proof besides $10,000 that Bow Wow (technically his assistant, “Larry Brown”) wired her. All throughout the episode, Nev particularly is sold on this money as proof. To that I say: Y’all know non-famous folks got money, too, right? It’s not $100K or something even crazier, that only a one-percenter would have. The rest of Keyonnah’s “proof” is as follows: She messaged this Facebook fan page thinking it was Bow Wow officially. She got a response back immediately wanting her number, and soon they bonded over their young daughters. They do not Skype because of bad connections on Bow Wow’s end, but it doesn’t matter 'cause this is Bow Wow, man. “People [at school] used to get so mad at me 'cause he was all I talked about,” she explains. “Bow Wow this, Bow Wow that.”
The red flags continue: The page Keyonnah met him through has been deleted, and his phone number is registered to a woman named Renee, who lives about an hour and a half away from Keyonnah in central North Carolina. They also read an interview with Bow Wow in which he praises Skype for keeping him connected with his young daughter. Nev and Max make the most posed phone call all season, to a media relations exec at MTV who just so happens to know the name of Bow Wow’s assistant off the top of her head. It’s Ant, in case you were wondering, not Larry Brown. Then “Bow Wow” picks a fight with Nev on text and says he has no time to meet Keyonnah, only to change his mind the next morning. So! They drive ten hours to Atlanta and roll up only to find out that Bow Wow is a butch chick named Dee. Keyonnah is on the brink of cussing her out, but Dee is super relaxed. She doesn’t understand why Keyonnah would be disappointed — she’s fly, she nearly passes for a dude, and she gave her $10K.
We’ll, at this point Keyonnah is straight done. No Bow Wow, but a lesbian with a lambskin dildo that she was gonna use to turn Keyonnah out. Lord have mercy! :) Now, knowing that this poor young woman suffered that kind of indignity, you would think that Bow Wow’s response would have a bit more compassion to it.
Nope, in the video response that BET issued, a self-centered Bow Wow comes off showing no concern for the young lady who was duped all because she was so infatuated with him.
“The new thing is this “catfish” situation. Let’s talk about how somebody is actually impersonating me. Now, first of all that’s a hard thing to do. Just look at me, you can’t impersonate this. These eyes, these ain’t contacts. You can’t buy these and put these in your eyes to think that you’re Bow Wow. These tattoos on my body, these is permanent. You can’t draw these on. It’s only one. It can only be one, not two but one. And that’s me. So how do I feel about being “Catfished?” Well, I feel honored. It’s dope and it’s flattering when someone wants to be you. And not only do they want to be you. In their mind, they are you. That’s crazy. But I like it. It’s free promo for myself, for BET, for ’106 & Park’.”
Afterwards Boweezy invited both Keyonnah and Dee Pimpin to meet him on his show “106 & Park.”
“But we gon’ do it on my time though, on our network though and on our show. I mean ya’ll did take all our pictures from our show and used them. You want to holla at Bow Weezy, come to 106. “Catfish,” it is what it is.”