Nev Schulman Teases ‘Catfish: The TV Show’ Shocker – ‘It Certainly Caught Me off Guard’ [Exclusive]
After more than a decade of following catfish stories, Catfish: The TV Show host Nev Schulman admits he continues to be shocked – and the latest season on MTV is a whopper.
Schulman brought catfishing to the mainstream via his 2010 documentary when he was catfished by a woman in Michigan. Realizing this phenomenon wasn’t unique to his situation, Schulman launched his series to help others who suspect they’ve been deceived.
Schulman said since he was catfished, the Internet has grown and provided a vast breeding ground for endless deception. “With the Internet now serving as this incredible multiplier of human interaction by pairing people with each other whom never, ever should or would have met otherwise,” Schulman told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “You get an infinite number of interactions which many, lead to better or worse catfish situations.”
Nev Schulman says this season of ‘Catfish’ explores a 20-year relationship
Heading into a new season, Schulman said one particular episode had his jaw on the ground. This case investigated a 20-year relationship, but the couple had never met in real life.
“I love telling all different types of stories. But it’s always really fascinating to me when we find a situation where people are a bit older,” he said. “And they’ve had a relationship that sort of spanned the course of, in some cases, a lifetime. In this case, 20-plus years. And I don’t want to obviously get into it too much. But this is a woman in her, I think 40s, maybe 50 actually. Who had been a part of an online community. She met somebody in that community.”
Nev teases he was ‘caught off guard’ by the end of his ‘Catfish’ investigation
Romance blossomed from friendship, Schulman recalled. “They’d become very good friends. And that friendship had obviously evolved over time and, ebbed and flowed in and out of romance,” he said. “And sort of always felt to her like a soulmate of some kind. Someone who was in tune and in touch.”
He added, “This woman also is a self-proclaimed witch. Satanist, I believe. I don’t know if the right word is spiritual, but she’s very in tune with the universe is a good way of saying it.”
“She had this incredible, fascinating connection with this person for 20-plus years. And for any number of reasons, which we mostly discover by the end of it, they just hadn’t been able to meet up. I mean, it certainly caught me off guard when we finally found out why,” he laughed. “There are a lot of interesting twists and turns this season for sure.”
He partners with a special guest host for that ‘Catfish’ episode too
Schulman is joined by celebrity guest hosts this season before co-host Kamie Crawford returned from filming a few other shows. For this case in particular, he partnered with Dylan Sprayberry from Teen Wolf. “He co-hosted that episode with me and the woman who had been in the 20-year relationship, calls herself Mother Wolf,” Schulman recalled.
“Coincidentally, Dylan was on Teen Wolf,” Schulman said. “It was like a weird Wolf Pack reunion, which was really fun. Dylan and I are both very hairy. So we kind of have that in common, Both very wolfy.”
Before Crawford returns, Schulman also teams up with Laura Perlongo, Tallulah Willis, and Shan Boodram.
A new season of Catfish: The TV Show premieres on February 28 at 8 pm ET/PT on MTV.
