That French girl looking for her baby’s Irish father? It was all a hoax
Earlier this week a French tourist went viral after posting a video in her hunt for the Irish guy who got her pregnant… but it turns out it was all a very questionable marketing trick.
Natalie Amyot hit headlines around the world on Monday when she launched her hunt for the "really cute guy" she met in O'Malleys Bar in Mooloolaba in Australia six months ago.
"It was love at first sight… We had a beautiful night. The next morning I flew home to Paris and I lost my phone with his number on it," she said in a video posted to YouTube. "Six weeks later I find out I'm pregnant, so I've come back here to try and find him."
The video now has over 1.4m views online, while a Facebook page for "tips" has 5,000 likes. However the unrequited love story was yesterday revealed to be a hoax, thought up by tourism agency Holiday Mooloolaba.
"This has been a viral video for Holiday Mooloolaba," English digital marketer Andy Sellar says in the crinegy reveal video, after admitting that "Natalie" was in fact an actress.
"I run a company called Sunny Coast Social Media and we do viral videos for businesses… We just wanted to put Mooloolaba on the map, because it’s a wonderful place."
However the video hasn't had quite the desired effect on tourism, with many angry viewers saying they really didn't see the point of deceiving anyone:
come to mooloolaba: our people are deceitful!
— colley (@JamColley) September 2, 2015
The biggest give away that it's a fake is that she said she had an amazing time in Mooloolaba. #topicaljokes
— Mikey Nicholson (@Mikey_Nicholson) September 1, 2015
So, Mooloolaba tourism is trying to sell itself as the place you can get knocked up to people whose names you won't remember? #ontoawinner
— Kim Stephens (@kimstephens_bt) September 2, 2015
Definitely a viral fail.
