Woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann apologises to missing girl’s parents
Julia Wendell also bizarrely said she'd never made the claims in the first place.
A woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann has apologised to the girl’s parents through a lengthy statement, in which she also denies she ever made the assertion.
Julia Wendell, from Poland, gained more than a million followers on Instagram and TikTok earlier this year after saying she was the missing Brit.
The 21-year-old even appeared on US talk show Dr Phil to plead her case to millions of viewers.
Her version of events was quickly dismissed by relatives of the McCanns and investigating police, but it took a DNA test this month to definitively put her claims to bed.
Kate and Gerry McCann didn’t respond directly to the results, saying in a statement after they were released: ‘There isn’t anything to report at this time.
‘If and when there is, it will come from The Metropolitan Police.’
Now, Julia has released her own statement, in which she details abuse she said she suffered in childhood and describes how got involved in the case.
She writes: ‘So it was my fault and It wasn’t my intention to bring sadness or another negative emotional to anyone, especially to McCann’s family.
‘My main purpose was always to find out who I am and what exactly happened in my very hurtful past.’
Bizarrely, she also denies ever claiming to be Kate and Gerry’s daughter, despite previously using the Instagram handle ‘iammadeleinemccann’.
She writes: ‘I don’t remember most of my memories but I can remember some things and I never said that I am Madeleine McCann.
‘I used this sentence to create a nick for my old instagram account, it was my mistake and I know it and I apologize for that because I should use words “Am I Madeleine McCann”, not “I am”.’
But later in the statement, Julia contradicts herself by insisting her claim is still valid, writing: ‘I believe that my birth certificate could be forged.
‘I still believe that it’s a possibility that I could be Madeleine.’
Recalling her early involvement, she adds: ‘Since I’ve started believing that my mother can’t be my mother, I’ve started to make a research about missing children.
‘And then I found picture of Madeleine and I tried to find out more about her abduction, that’s why I joined so many Facebook groups about her unsolved case.’
Private investigator and American media personallity Dr Fia Johansson, who has been granted power of attorney over Julia, said earlier this month the DNA results showed she was ‘absolutely 100 percent from Poland’.
She added: ‘She is a small percentage of Lithuanian and Russian but the test results show she is Polish.
‘We learned a few things, one being that Julia’s mum is in fact now believed to be her mum, so she is not Madeleine McCann.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.