The time that Ryan Ross was catfished by a fan pretending to be Brendon Urie (Masterpost)
In 2012, an obsessive Panic! at the Disco fan named Chelsey Lynn used the powers of the internet to forcibly insert herself into the lives of her favorite band members—most notably catfishing Ryan Ross for about nine months under the guise of being Brendon Urie. Yes, this really happened.
Chelsey was particularly obsessed with Brendon and Sarah, and she didn’t even like Ryan all that much. She ran several fan blogs about the Uries, which would often release pictures never before seen by the public. All the fans were loving it. After all, who doesn’t love new pictures? What they didn’t know is that Chelsey had gotten the pictures through deception, and it would soon get a lot worse.
She had hacked several accounts of people close to Brendon and Sarah Urie, and even made puppet accounts purporting to be their family members. She made spreadsheets and long documents on her computer listing their relatives, addresses, their relatives’ addresses, and other highly personal information. Many of their private photos ended up on Chelsey’s blogs. And sometime around September 2012, she hacked Shane Valdez’s Facebook account, which kept him locked out of it for over a month.
And through Shane’s account, Chelsey messaged none other than Ryan Ross and got his actual phone number. (For her part, Chelsey claims that she got Ryan’s phone number through one of his friends.)
She pretended to be Brendon, wanting to be rekindle their friendship (which had officially fractured sometime around 2010). Ryan was naively receptive to the idea, and began texting who he thought was his former best friend.
Chelsey was so obsessed with Brendon that she could mimic his speech patterns, to the point that Ryan was completely fooled. Of course, Ryan had no reason to doubt “Brendon’s” authenticity, and either way, he was going through a tough time in his life and needed emotional support wherever he could find it. Chelsey/”Brendon” also made a convincing fake Instagram account, which Ryan followed and regularly left comments on.
After about nine months (Chelsey claims it was six) of catfishing Ryan, which brings us to early August 2013, Chelsey began to regret her decisions and became depressed and suicidal. Several Tumblr users, most notably @dallonsmiles (AKA Hannah Bear), figured out what was going on with the Facebook accounts and got her to confess over Skype.
But in addition to owning up to her crimes, Chelsey also admitted to being in contact with Ryan, which no one knew about yet. She bragged about all the information she’d gotten from Ryan. She had fished for details and gotten him to open up about Panic’s split, his family issues, his relationship issues with Z, his broken friendship with Brendon, and more.
The screenshots are highly personal and disturbing, because she’s bragging about information that Ryan shared in confidence. I am not going to post everything (someone has to respect Ryan’s privacy, after all!), but this is a brief taste of the conversations:
Hannah Bear may have played along to get in Chelsey’s good books, but she immediately messaged Ryan’s then-manager Shane Morris about it, and thankfully Shane actually took her seriously. Shane broke the news to Ryan, who was embarrassed and horrified (as you can imagine), and then he got back to the worried fans—thus confirming that this actually happened.
Chelsey was not done, however, and released screenshots of several of her actual text conversations with Ryan. Again, I am not going to post them (or links to them) out of respect for Ryan. If you really want to see them, Google exists.
Chelsey also released an apology letter on Tumblr:
I’d like to apologize to Brendon Urie, for deliberately impersonating him to friends, fans and affiliates, I’d like to apologize to Ryan Ross for impersonating a long time friend and convincing him of consolation with said friend, obtaining information from him about events involving his life, music, and past. Information was shared with a few people online regarding the situation of Ryan’s friendship with Brendon Urie.
I would like to apologize to Sarah Urie for impersonating her, and her husband, and taking up her time regarding the situations involving me.
I’d like to apologize to Hannah Brown, Ronnie Morgan and any other fans I have spoken to as Brendon or about the situations involving Brendon, family members, or Ryan Ross.
I’d like to apologize to Shane Morris for involving him in this situation, and that the situation had to turn out like this.
I would also like to thank Shane Morris for not taking any legal action as long as I am to never contact Ryan Ross or any of the other band members again.
I’d like to apologize to the fanbase, for making a complete falsification of what a true fan really is, I am aware also that I am in need of therapy and medication to continue my life and move on in a healthy manner. I am sorry for lying to all of them about where I obtained certain information and where I obtained private photo’s. All private photo’s and information have been removed from my computer, all accounts have been deleted and all phone numbers or addresses have been removed as well. I severely hope there is never anything like this in the fandom again, and that it continues on healthier and stronger without fabrication and drama.
I am aware that Shane Morris has taken my contact information, and will use it in regards of me ever contacting his artist again.
I am aware that what I did was wrong, immoral, obsessive, compulsive and unhealthy. I am also aware that anyone I have wronged or convinced of my personification as Brendon Urie can take legal action against me, though I severely hope they do not.
Shane has given me a list of therapists in my city, so I can choose and speak to them, Before Shane gave me the link to said therapists I was already looking into admitting myself into a mental ward for 2 weeks. I will be keeping Shane posted on my situation regarding therapy and moving on with my life without my Monomania, Depression and Personality Disorders. I am fully aware now that what I have done is wrong, and everything that I obtained was illegal, private, and immoral. This experience has made me want to be a better person, a person that doesn’t keep up a facade, because they don’t like who they really are. I have learned that people aren’t just toys you can take out of the box and play with and put back in, they are people with feelings, lives, and goals. I am sorry for mistreating every person I’ve spoken to. I am looking forward to changing my future in the best way possible. In a way this was a good thing for me, I finally got the karma I deserved and probably needed.
I’m sorry for being a huge waste of everyone’s time, I will get better. I want to.
As you can imagine, this experience left Ryan worse for wear. His life began to spiral out of control throughout 2013, and he was clearly unwell. Shane Morris even unhelpfully spread rumors that Ryan needed to be checked into rehab.
These are his first two Instagram posts after finding out the truth in late August 2013. And, um, they’re pretty disturbing in context.
His first post-catfish selfie also showed some signs of distress:
As you can imagine, this experience may have ruined whatever chance Ryan and Brendon had of ever rekindling their friendship. It is very telling that Ryan thought he could be friends with Brendon again specifically because the person texting back was not, in fact, Brendon. This horrible betrayal of Ryan’s confidence probably gave him a chance to reevaluate whether he’d want to be friends with Brendon again.
So, when they actually ran into each other in real life at Adam Levine’s Halloween party in 2015, Brendon decided to try to be friends again.
And Ryan did not text the real Brendon back.
P.S. Basically, this is a large part of why we here at Pathetic! at the Disco are asking everyone to Leave Ryan Alone! He has suffered more than enough already, especially from his fans. Please Leave Ryan Alone!
P.P.S. Chelsey is still VERY ACTIVE in the Panic! fandom and is still up to her old tricks. She has immensely popular accounts on Instagram and YouTube, under the name of brendonurievines. Please spread the word about her misdeeds so everyone won’t accidentally support such a cruel individual.
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