Keep your friends close and your Catfish closer! Cohosts Nev Schulman and Max Joseph teamed up to help Chelsea from Virginia Beach get to the bottom of her online beau of a year and a half on the Wednesday, August 1, episode of Catfish.
Chelsea, 21, initially sent Nev and Max a video, begging the MTV investigators to help her find the true identity of Charles Rich, a man she’d met on Plenty of Fish and had been talking to online for the past year and a half. When Chelsea admitted that the duo had only spoken on the phone with each other once during the entire course of their relationship, Nev and Max immediately saw a red flag.
Another troubling detail involved Charles’ admission that he was serving in the Navy, based out of Orlando. Upon closer examination, it was clear his military uniform was actually a U.S. Army uniform. Even more confusing was the name tag which displayed the last name “Vaughn.” Meanwhile, Chelsea emotionally confessed the depth of her relationship with Charles. “We have talked about having a future, me moving to Florida [and] having kids,” she told the experts.
Nev and Max quickly discovered the true identity of the person in Charles’ photos was actually a man named Jalyll Vaughn. Jalyll was currently serving in the Army but revealed he’d never talked to anyone named Chelsea. When Chelsea discovered that the photos were fake, she appeared heartbroken, saying, “I can’t trust anybody.”
Then, in a shocking twist, Nev and Max received a cryptic anonymous direct message, asking them to meet up with someone who had more information on Charles’ true identity. With Chelsea in tow, Max and Nev met up with Chad, who Chelsea instantly recognized as the voice she spoke with during her one phone conversation with Charles. Chad revealed he wasn’t Charles and said he had spoken on the phone with Chelsea as a favor to the actual person behind the account.
Eventually Nev, Max, and Chelsea found themselves at a park, face-to-face with the last person Chelsea expected to see: her female roommate Dominique. Quickly and shockingly, Dominique admitted, “I’m Charles. I had a crush on your for almost two years now … I do love you.” Betrayed and confused, Chelsea responded saying, “That’s some f—ked up s—t.”
“I’m telling you now to get this off my chest. I want to see if we can move on to be more than friends,” Dominique said.
When Dominique had a chance to speak with Max privately, she confessed, “[Chelsea] deserves someone to treat her right.” She then added, shockingly, “We sleep in the same bed. We have a queen size bed.”
“Is that torture for you, sleeping in the same bed every night?” Max asked.
“Yes,” Dominique responded.
The next day, after more details came forward, Dominique elaborated on her motives.
“I had a crush on Chelsea and I was too scared to tell her … I was scared at the beginning to be myself, to be more than a friend to her,” she said. “Maybe I liked the confidence Charles gave me.”
After a tough conversation, Chelsea said, “I do want to still be best friends and stuff.”
She even left Dominique with a glimmer of romantic hope saying, “I’m not saying that I’m not gonna have a relationship with you otherwise. Other than best friends.”
A couple months later, Dominique and Chelsea were back to living together and had even gone on a couple dates. Sparks weren’t exactly flying, however, and Dominique admitted, “I wasn’t feeling it like I thought I would.”
Catfish airs on MTV Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
