Kira Cousins, 23, has come forward to explain her elaborate deception, which involved using a prosthetic to simulate a pregnancy and later a life-like doll named Bonnie-Leigh Joyce to represent her supposed newborn daughter. The former supermarket worker stated that she could not bring herself to tell her then-partner, Jamie Gardner, that she had suffered a miscarriage.
"I couldn’t tell him. I did lose a child. I’d tried to tell him when I first lost the child," Cousins told the Sunday Mail. "I still have messages on my phone which said, ‘Jamie, we need to sit down’. But I couldn’t speak to him about anything."
Cousins' story gained international attention last October when the ruse was exposed. She had reportedly worn an artificial baby bump for months, shared doctored baby scan images, and even hosted a gender reveal party. Photographs of baby clothes and gifts were also shared.
She explained that the deception escalated because she feared telling Gardner the truth after he had initially been hesitant about the pregnancy. "I think there was a bit of fear and shock as well," Cousins said. "I’d gone through that myself. How do you tell someone that you’ve already gone through all that by yourself?"
Gardner, however, disputes Cousins' account, stating he has no recollection of her ever attempting to inform him about a miscarriage. "If I had ever known that was really a doll, I’d have run off sooner," he told the newspaper. "I’ve not got a clue what really happened to be honest."
The deception unraveled days after Gardner's relatives were picked up from a birthday party, at which point the doll was discovered in the back of a car. Children present identified the object as a doll, leading to suspicions being raised. Cousins claimed that when she finally admitted the truth to Gardner, he called her a "psycho" and left, marking the end of their relationship. Gardner has stated he did not learn the truth directly from Cousins.