The sad story about a single mom with 11 children who was laid off before Christmas may have been invented for a GoFundMe come up.
Multiple social media users claim Jessica Sumlin is a real life “Joanne the Scammer” who is lying about giving birth to 11 children.
Joanne the Scammer is a fictional Internet character played by YouTube comedian Branden Miller.
Sumlin made headlines earlier this week when news reports claimed she was a single mom of 11 children who faced eviction.
But the Internet says Summerlin only has 2 children. The other 9 kids allegedly belong to her boyfriend who doesn’t have a job and relies on her to take care of him and his brood.
Sumlin’s story, first reported by Fox13Memphis, resulted in hundreds of Internet users opening their hearts, wallets and pocketbooks to donate over $10,000 to her GoFundMe page.
Sumlin apparently deleted a second GoFundMe page that she created back in June 2019 with a completely different struggle story.
She also deleted her social media pages including a Twitter.com page and a Facebook page.
A 5smiles.com page, where she sells shoes and household items for less than $50 each, is still active.
There were multiple clues to her apparent deception that were easy to find if Fox13Memphis bothered to do any research into her story.
For example, she is only shown with one child in media articles and on her GoFundMe page. Her GoFundMe page doesn’t mention 11 children. Her GoFundMe summary says she lived with her mom, but in interviews she claimed she didn’t have any “immediate family” to depend on for help.
She isn’t technically a “single mother” if she lives with a boyfriend.
No wonder critics say journalism is dead in America.
