Kira Cousins’ victim says she “feels sick” after the young woman nicked photographs of her friend’s baby to post on social media, claiming it was her little girl
A brazen woman who faked having a baby — from pregnancy to motherhood — had previously tried to pass off her friend’s real infant as hers, it has emerged.
Kira Cousins posted pictures of the child on her own social media — having nicked the photographs off her mate’s page. She even gave the girl a different name in the gushing updates, a sequence of behaviour which angered the child’s real mother.
The woman, given the pseudonym Laura to protect her identity and her family, today said: “I was horrified. I felt sick. This was my child. I’ve had nothing but anxiety about my child’s safety since this has come out, knowing Kira lives so close. I don’t know what this girl is capable of.”
This deception only emerged recently, following Ms Cousins’ fake pregnancy this year that fooled social media users. Ms Cousins, from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, moulded and painted a doll, a convincing “Reborn” one to eerily create what looked like a little human, and tricked her family with a distubing AI video.
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Ms Cousins named her “child” Bonnie-Leigh Joyce, and even pretended she died, only to, in October, make an emotional confession about her lies. She told her social media flock: “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t pregnant. There was no baby. I made it up and kept it going way too far. I faked scans, messages, a whole birth story and acted like a doll was a real baby. I know how bad it is. I just didn’t know how to stop once I started.”
But the friend, who went to school with Ms Cousins, has little sympathy after her experience. She was furious to learn this week Ms Cousins, a supermarket worker, has agreed to tell her story to a TV production company. Soho Studios Entertainment and Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media will work a film, which Two Rivers says carries “huge international interest”.
Laura, though, told the Daily Mail: “I think she [Kira] is getting all the wrong type of attention from it and I don’t believe the story she is going to tell is going to be completely honest. I definitely don’t think she should be profiting from any of this. I don’t think the documentary should be made at all.”
It is unclear, however, if Ms Cousins how much money — if any — will make from the TV programme. She had said, though, she was not interested in appearing in a film or documentary about what happened. Laura claims she has refused to take part in a TV production.
In a general statement, Alan Clements, managing director of Two Rivers Media, said: “We are delighted that, with the huge international interest around this story, Kira chose us.
“Both Two Rivers and Soho Studios pride ourselves on bringing remarkable human experiences, told by the people who were at the centre of the action, to the screen. We look forward to treating those involved, the issues and this story with the sensitivity they deserve.”
