A woman has recounted the devastating story of how she discovered her fiancé had been lying about his entire life just weeks before their wedding.
Most of us are guilty of telling the odd white lie when dating, but how far would you go in order to impress a potential significant other?
For Megan Clarke, 27, she thought she’d found her happy ever after when she begun a relationship with Lord Bertie Underwood, a charming horologist (someone who makes and repairs watches).
Although she wasn’t looking to settle down, Megan – who was 20 years old at the time and working as a bar manager on the Isle of Wright – was soon swept off her feet by the dashing Lord, who treated her to luxurious date nights and invited her to live in his lavish seafront home.
“He was charming, kind, thoughtful, loving. A real gentleman,” Megan recounted of their relationship during an interview with Metro.
The relationship moved quickly. Within a month the pair had said ‘I love you’ and Bertie would pop the question six months later, surprising Megan with a Cartier diamond ring.
However if things sound almost too good to be true, there’s a chance that something more sinister is lurking beneath the surface.
Bertie would request that Megan didn’t post his face on social media, claiming it was because of his dad’s high-ranking career in the navy (which in hindsight should be the second red flag after the name ‘Lord Bertie Underwood’).
However the fairytale would begin to unravel when Megan noticed letters arriving at their home under various different names. Bertie claimed they were for previous tenants, but the former bar manager was not convinced and decided to investigate further.
What Megan then discovered would bring her world crashing down entirely.
However not everything was as it seemed.
Megan later discovered that Bertie had multiple bank cards under various aliases and after googling the names, she uncovered that her Lord actually had a long track record for fraud, using names such as Robert Doughty and Robert Soanes-Madejski to get away with his crimes.
The truth devastated Megan, who would be dealt another crushing blow once the pair split – with ‘Bertie’ having racked up around £30,000 of debt in her name.
“We went to the police and action fraud,” she recalled to The Sun. “[But] unfortunately there wasn’t a great deal they could do.”
Megan has since worked to pay off the debts and rebuild her life while ‘Bertie’ has since been arrested on fraud charges and sentenced to five years in prison. However he escaped in 2022 and currently remains on the run.
The fact that ‘Bertie’ is now on the run is something which has left Megan unsettled, as she added to Metro that she would ‘freeze’ if she encountered him on the street.
Megan’s story appears as part of the series Love Cheats, which is available to watch on Channel 4.
Lisa Marie Presley kept her son Benjamin’s body at home for two months after he passed away.
Lisa Marie Presley was so devastated by the loss of her son, Benjamin Keough, that she kept his body in her home for two months after he passed away. She even invited a tattoo artist to see him so she could get matching tattoos.
This is just one of many surprising details in Lisa Marie’s new memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which was completed by her daughter, actress Riley Keough, after Lisa Marie passed away in January 2023.
Lisa Marie (left) next to her beloved son Ben, along with her third husband, Michael Lockwood, and a guest, at the London premiere of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in November 2010.
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In her book, Lisa Marie shared that she had to fight to stay alive for her other children, Riley and her twin daughters Harper and Finley, who are now 16. She didn’t say goodbye to Benjamin right away because she was torn between burying him in Hawaii or at Graceland, the Memphis estate where Elvis, her father, is buried.
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Lisa Marie kept the room at 55 degrees to preserve Benjamin’s body and got so used to caring for him and having him there.
Riley and Lisa Marie decided to honor Benjamin by getting tattoos like his. Benjamin had his sister’s name on his collarbone and his mom’s name on his hand. Riley had her brother’s name tattooed on her collarbone, and a tattoo artist was called to Lisa Marie’s home to add Benjamin’s name to her hand. When the artist asked if they had photos of Benjamin’s tattoos to match the font and placement, Lisa Marie said, “No, but I can show you.”
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Riley writes: “Lisa Marie Presley had just asked this poor man to look at her dead son, who was right next to us in the guest house. I’ve had a very strange life, but this moment is one of the weirdest.”
Lisa Marie also knew it was strange. She said, “I think it would scare the heck out of anyone else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
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Soon after the tattoo day, Riley remembers that everyone felt like Benjamin wanted to be laid to rest.
Even Lisa Marie said she could feel him communicating with her, saying, “This is crazy, Mom, what are you doing? What the heck!”
The family held a funeral for Benjamin in Malibu, and New Age author Deepak Chopra led the ceremony. Riley said she had to keep her eyes closed the whole time because she was struggling to cope with everything.
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Benjamin was buried at Graceland, next to Elvis, and Lisa Marie would later be buried there too.
Riley writes a lot about her brother’s struggles with mental health and how he often went on drinking binges. She doesn’t believe he truly wanted to die.
After his death, she and her mom went through his phone, looking for answers.
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Riley writes, “We found a text he sent to my mom a couple of weeks before he died that said, ‘I think something’s wrong with me mentally. I think I have a mental health issue.’ It’s heartbreaking to me that he only realized he might need help just two weeks before he took his own life.”
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