Shimon Hayut, otherwise known as Simon Leviev, the central figure in the Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, has denied claims that he conned women for money.
Speaking out against the allegations for the first time, in an exclusive interview with Inside Edition, Hayut denied being a “Tindler Swindler” and said, “I’m not a fraud and I’m not a fake. People don’t know me so they cannot judge me.” He added, “I am not this monster that everybody has created. I was just a single guy who wanted to meet some girls on Tinder.”
The Tinder Swindler has been streaming on Netflix since February 2. Directed by Felicity Morris, the true-crime documentary follows three women who accused Hayut of scamming them of $500,000 in total.
Hayut is a convicted fraudster born in Israel. He claimed to be the son of a billionaire diamond mogul and used dating apps to meet multiple women. He then allegedly established lines of credit and loans under their names, ultimately leaving them responsible for the bills.
It is to be noted that even before the timeline shown in the documentary, Hayut had faced multiple charges in Israel and was sentenced to prison time in Finland.
Hayut is said to have duped women of a total of $10 million. He would evade repayment by cajoling, threatening or stalling his victims. He had a habit of sending increasingly unhinged WhatsApp voice messages, even sending one to the filmmakers when he learned about existence of The Tinder Swindler.
In the interaction released by Inside Edition on Monday, Hayut denied being a billionaire’s son and said the women in The Tinder Swindler were not conned or threatened by him. He added that he didn’t “feel bad” for the women who spoke out in the documentary as he did not do what was alleged.
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Hayut’s girlfriend, Israeli model Kate Konlin, also appeared during the interaction and said that he never borrowed any money from her. She added, “My God! How can someone pull off such a fake stunt?”
The Tinder Swindler has garnered over 64 million hours of viewership, according to Netflix’s weekly data, and has been featuring in the top spot since its release.
Recently, Variety reported that the streamer is also planning to make a feature film based on the documentary.