FAKE baby ‘mum’ Kira Cousins has blamed her “stupid” loved ones for falling for her twisted scandal – as her ex opens up about the ordeal for the first time.
The 23-year-old bogus ‘mum’ duped family, friends and the supposed father into believing she was pregnant, and even hosted a baby shower before pretending a life-like doll was her tot.
She introduced the doll to loved ones as her daughter Bonnie-Leigh Joyce, and hundreds of doting comments flooded in congratulating her.
Days later, she is said to have lied that the make-believe child had died from a heart condition.
However, the ruse was exposed when her mum found the doll in her bedroom, and a betrayed friend posted the story online.
Kira later fled the house she shares with her mum in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, and went into hiding to escape the backlash after being bombarded with hate online when the story went viral in October last year.
But in a tell-all interview, she blamed her closest friends and family for being “stupid” to believe the twisted lies she created.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail, Kira admitted to faking giving birth to a little girl and accepted that what she did was wrong.
However, she claimed that her lies started after she suffered a miscarriage and was unable to tell her then-boyfriend Jamie Gardner, who believed the doll was real.
The former supermarket worker said: “I couldn’t tell him. I did lose a child. I’d tried to tell him when I first lost the child.
“I still have messages on my phone which said, ‘Jamie, we need to sit down,’ but I couldn’t speak to him about anything.
“I can hold my hands up and say, ‘No, I shouldn’t have used a doll’, but at the same time, nobody knows what our relationship was like.”
Kira said the deceit spiralled out of control because she was worried about telling Jamie the truth about her miscarriage.
She added: “I think there was a bit of fear and shock as well. I’d gone through that myself.
“Before all this, we had also fallen out, and it was really bad. He hadn’t wanted the baby at first, and I think that didn’t help.
“He had gone from that to, ‘Here we go, we are actually going to have it,’ and then to wanting it.”
The bogus mum hosted a gender reveal party, and photos and videos apparently show Kira bending over and crying with joy as a cannon and pink confetti burst out.
The supposed mum also allegedly bought a fake baby bump and wore it to weddings and later bombarded her social media profiles with videos and photos of her supposed baby.
She even used AI to make it look like the “baby” was moving in videos, friends previously said.
After the fake birth, Kira is said to have posted a date, time and weight of the doll dressed in a hat with a dummy in its mouth.
She then posted pictures of the doll in different outfits in carriers and pushchairs gifted to her by allegedly duped friends and family.
But days later, she is said to have lied that the make-believe child had died from a heart condition.
Kira managed to keep up the lies with the fake baby after the birth by keeping her unsuspecting family away from the doll, only allowing Jamie and herself to hold it.
Loved ones thought she was just being protective, not letting anyone touch or hold her baby as a new mum, but it is understood that eventually her ruse came to light when her mum later discovered the doll in her bedroom.
However, she said that she was worried that her lies about her baby would be exposed sooner than she thought, after family members began to become suspicious.
Younger relatives said they thought the baby was a doll during a car journey, and her family raised concerns that the baby wasn’t moving, crying, or opening her eyes.
But Facebook posts claim that Kira said they went to the doctor to get checked out and everything was normal.
Kira also revealed that Jamie took the baby to his parents‘ home alone to meet the baby and said: “Everyone in that house saw it and none of them twigged.”
And she said that those who believed her lies should have realised earlier that the baby was actually a life-like doll.
She said: “If they didn’t, they were stupid.”
Kira was forced to tell Jamie the truth days later and said she hasn’t seen him since he “walked out” after saying, “You’re a psycho”.
But she told The Sunday Mail that the pair later spoke on the phone after the scandal came to light.
Kira said: “When I first got back in contact with Jamie after this, one of the first things I asked him was if he really knew.”
She added: “No one was near that doll except me and Jamie. So if anyone should have known, it was Jamie.”
Jamie told The Sunday Mail that he would have left Kira if he knew, or suspected, that his daughter was really a doll.
He also claimed that Kira never directly told him about the baby being a doll, and said that when he found out, it wasn’t “through her”.
Jamie also disputed claims that Kira ever tried to tell him that she had suffered a miscarriage.