I came from nothing to make the biggest podcast in the world, I’ve worked my a** off, says Scamanda’s Charlie Webster
HER global chart-topping podcast, Scamanda, has been turned into a deliciously watchable TV series for true crime lovers to binge-watch.
The four-part docuseries is a passion project for journalist Charlie Webster, 42, who wanted to bring jailed cancer faker Amanda Riley’s story to life for a new audience free from constraints of an audio format.
Though she’d already made acclaimed podcasts like Surviving El Chapo and Died and Survived, she didn’t predict the phenomenon her Scamanda project would become when it was named the most popular podcast globally in 2023.
The pinch me moment was a long way from her humble beginnings growing up in the north of England and a life marked by harrowing incidents of childhood abuse as well as a near-death experience after contracting malaria during a charity cycle ride in Brazil in 2016.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Charlie said: “Sometimes I don’t even know where to laugh or cry, or think I’m the unluckiest person or the luckiest person in the world.
“Because sometimes I feel like, what the f**k, give me a break. Like, I’ve just been going through horrific IVF and none of it’s worked.
“I had a miscarriage earlier last year, I nearly died eight years ago. It’s like give me a break. But then sometimes I’m like, well, I’m still here.
“I’m speaking to you. And I’ve made a global phenomenon, which is my work. And that’s incredible, right?
“I’ve worked my ass off. I come from absolutely nothing. I don’t come from like, middle ground. I come from absolutely nothing.”
Later this year, Amanda Riley will be a free woman three years into her five year sentence for pleading guilty to wire fraud.
The mum-of-two conned people into believing she had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma via a highly-detailed and believable online blog which she used to aggressively fundraise, pulling in over $105,000 in donations over a seven year period.
A driving factor behind Charlie’s podcast was to examine betrayals and female friendships, which she feels aren’t explored enough.
Scamanda shows Amanda to be a pillar of her local church and community, and gradually reveals how her unethical plot was finally rumbled by the authorities after a whistleblower, now known to be Amanda’s former friend Lisa Berry, contacted investigative journalist Nancy Moscatiello who was looking to expose fraudulent activity.
Lisa was burned by Amanda years previously when she claimed to have terminal cancer, which her friend eventually found to be a lie prompting her to cut Amanda out of her life.
When she stumbled across Amanda’s cancer blog years later, alarm bells immediately rang and she raised the alarm.
Rather than paint Amanda as the monster some believe her to be, Charlie was keen to be non-judgmental and let viewers make up their minds.
Since being jailed, it has come to light that Amanda could have Munchhausen’s disease, a personality disorder where the sufferer craves attention through feigning illness, which, if the case, would make her actions less black and white than perhaps it might previously have been.
Charlie said: “One of the things I was intrigued with is like, is she a monster? Is she like a sociopath? Is she somebody that’s like very mentally, psychologically ill? Or is she aware of what she’s done? And she does she understand it?
“So from my perspective, having spent a lot of time with her, and I’m the only person that has spent that time with her, and I’m the only person other than her mum and her husband that she’s spoken to. And to me, she is aware what she’s done.
“She is sorry. And she takes responsibility for it. And she said to me that she’s every day, regrets what she’s done is and is ashamed of herself and can’t believe what she’s done.”
Amanda turned down Charlie’s request to take part in the series, however, she does feature in documentary footage made by an unnamed person prior to her arrest.
Though she isn’t actively involved in the series, Charlie believes Amanda will eventually want to share her side of the story.
She said: “I think she feels like she probably wants a voice. But also is concerned people won’t believe her.
“I think from her perspective, she’s not a monster but people think she is.”
Amanda’s story might still be creating a buzz two years on from its initial media frenzy, but Charlie is already working on a new project due for release later in the year and is also open to the possibility of a film being made about her own life.
Last year she released a book, Why It’s OK to Talk About Trauma, which delves into her own story and explores the mental, emotional and physical elements of trauma.
She decided on that direction over a memoir because she felt it would be more helpful to others, but now it is out in the world she is open to telling her story in more conventional terms.
Among the key moments would undoubtedly be her brush with death when she contracted malaria on a 3,000 mile cycle ride across Brazil in 2016.
During the terrifying ordeal her vital organs collapsed and she even recalled having conversations with Death as her life hung in the balance.
“A few people in the industry have commented about it,” said Charlie. “And maybe it is something that I will write up and then pursue.
“I’d love to do something like a film, because honestly, even if I just think about what happened to me in Rio, it’s kind of surreal sometimes.
“Honest to God, it’d be like a hopeful, inspirational film, with probably a bit of dark comedy.”
Watch Scamanda on Disney+ from 21st February in the UK.