Casey Donovan has revealed the shocking extent of her former best friend’s manipulation, after the singer was cruelly ‘catfished’ for six years.
The Australian Idol star first confessed in 2014 that she fell in love with a man named ‘Campbell’, only to find out he didn’t exist and was invented by her best friend Olga.
And she confirmed on Andrew Denton’s Interview program on Tuesday night that Olga once used her elaborate web of lies to coerce Casey into having sex with her.
‘I was just willing to do anything to see him’: Casey Donovan (pictured) has revealed she had her first sexual experience with the friend who cruelly catfished her for six years
‘I think by that time I was just willing to do anything to see him,’ the 30-year-old said, reflecting on her harrowing ordeal.
Casey, who identifies as straight, explained how ‘Campbell’ had asked her to have sex with Olga, and then tell him about the encounter afterwards over the phone.
Desperate to finally meet her fictional boyfriend, the young songstress agreed to the bizarre request. It was her first sexual experience.
She said: ‘My intuition was saying, “This isn’t right, don’t be a d**khead”. But I’d put so much time in this that he had to be real.
‘The sexual encounter with Olga… [Campbell] was like, “Do that, then we’ll all get together and do that together”.
‘But um… it was a seed. It was planted… We were in her room and then [Olga] just kind of tried it on and I was like, “Oh, this is happening” and then, “Oh, that happened”.’
‘I convinced myself that he was real’: Casey fought back tears as she told Andrew Denton (left) about the six-year catfishing ordeal on Channel Seven’s Interview on Tuesday night
‘It was weird and I was…’ she added before trailing off. ‘It really stuffed with my head. There were so many things happening, I didn’t know which way was up.’
Reflecting on Olga’s motivation, Casey said she wondered if her friend was driven by repressed sexual desire.
‘I don’t know if she was a closeted lesbian that didn’t understand her sexuality so she tried to make other people feel like they had to do that,’ she said.
Deceived: In 2014, Casey fell in love with a man named ‘Campbell’- only to discover six years later that he didn’t exist and her then-best friend Olga (right) was catfishing her
Elsewhere in her emotional interview, Casey revealed she had learned to forgive the person who masterminded her six-year ordeal.
‘I think I have forgiven her – there’s some anger there definitely but I had to let it go to move forwards,’ she said.
Despite this, she still tries not to think about her former friend and blocks out memories of her painful experience.
Casey’s relationship with the non-existent ‘Campbell’ began the moment she started receiving his calls on Australia Day 2005.
Driving force: Reflecting on Olga’s motivation, Casey said she wondered if her friend was driven by repressed sexual desire
With Casey just 16 years old and fresh off her victory on Australian Idol, her mysterious caller made her feel ‘comfortable’ at a time when she couldn’t go out at night because of her age.
‘You can’t go out to pubs and clubs with the other people. I was like, “This is interesting”,’ she recalled.
Casey said that ‘Campbell’, from whom she would receive chiseled photographs of him with a six-pack, sounded like a ‘surfie’ over the phone.
She admitted she would lie to her family, telling them she had physically met the elusive Campbell.
‘I was creating this big ball of lies until one day I was like, “There’s something not right,”‘ she said.
The young songstress has previously spoken of how the penny finally dropped when her manager Jason intervened to find out the truth.
And during her chat with Andrew Denton, she went into excruciating detail about how Olga’s fake persona unravelled.
‘We [Jason and Casey] went and picked her up and were driving to Campbell’s house,’ she explained.
‘We were driving and Jason was asking all these questions and [Olga] just sat in the back of the car in silence.
‘It took every bit of my strength to not reach over in that car and just snap carrots, basically.’
In 2014, Casey told Daily Mail Australia it had been ‘extremely difficult’ to get over the emotional trauma of the experience, but she had managed to move on.
‘That’s life, that’s moving on and growing strong as a person,’ she said. ‘Things happen, s**t happens and you can get stuck in it, or you can move forward.’
Moving on: In 2014, Casey told Daily Mail Australia it had been ‘extremely difficult’ to get over the emotional trauma of the experience, but she had managed to move on