Did Sherri Papini Actually Fake Her Kidnapping? She Reveals Exactly What She ‘Lied’ About

Alyssa Norwin May 21, 2025, 11:01 am

Sherri Papini in 'Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie' — ID

In ID’s upcoming four-part docuseries Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie, Sherri Papini is telling her side of the story for the very first time.

In 2022, Papini signed a plea agreement that said she “knowingly planned and participated in her own hoax kidnapping and then made materially false statements to FBI agents about the circumstances of her disappearance and committed mail fraud based on her hoax kidnapping.” However, she now says that she was not behind the kidnapping scheme, placing blame fully on her ex-boyfriend James Reyes, whom she began an emotional affair with amid issues in her marriage to Keith Papini.

“I told law enforcement I was abducted by two Hispanic women, which wasn’t true. I was abducted by my ex-boyfriend who held me captive for 22 days. There was no consent and he still did it,” Papini insists. “The injuries that occurred, the bites on my inner and outer thigh, the footprint on my back, the branding, the melting of my skin … I can’t do that to myself. I am telling you, there was no consent.”

According to Papini, everything that happened to her during her 22-day disappearance in 2016 was done against her will. She says the only thing she actually lied about was the identity of her kidnapper.

“I lied about James’ identity for several reasons,” she explains. “First and foremost, I was in danger. I was scared of James, and keeping his identity concealed was keeping me safe. He mentioned he was going to be watching the coverage over and over and over again. So he was watching, waiting to see if I would come out and tell him. On top of that, I couldn’t tell my husband that I was having an affair.”

Papini says she was “desperate” for someone who would “engage in the participation of something” with her, which she claims she wasn’t getting in her marriage. She turned to Reyes and was getting “emotional intimacy” from him. “It was not sexual,” Papini adds. “James was someone who was listening to me and hearing me. That’s what I needed.”

She managed to keep the emotional affair a secret by communicating with Reyes via a secondary phone. But while officials suspected that she was “planning a secret hoax kidnapping” during her conversations with Reyes, Papini says that “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Referencing how Keith previously made her sign a post-nuptial agreement that stated he would get “everything” if she ever cheated on him, she adds, “The truth is, I was concealing an affair from my husband. My husband, who’s threatening to take everything from me if he found out I was having any involvement [with another person]”.

Point-blank, Papini reiterates, “I lied about James’ identity. I lied about the man that abducted me to keep him a secret. Everything else I said was true. It’s never changed. Every injury, every incident, the description of the room down to every last bit of fragment, was not a lie.”

Where Is Sherri Papini Today? All About Her Life After Kidnapping Hoax

As for why she made up the lie about, specifically, two Hispanic women kidnapping her, Papini explains that she was “trying to give [officials] little breadcrumbs and give them little clues of who was involved without directly saying who was involved.” Since Reyes’ mom is Hispanic, Papini thought describing her would be “like trying to lead them right to James without revealing James’ identity. It was the best that I could do.”

She admits that this wasn’t “the most logical choice,” but says she was “conquered by fear” in the moment.

Meanwhile, Reyes “denies kidnapping and sexually abusing Sherri,” according to a title card in the doc. “He maintains that any harm he inflicted on her was done at her direction. He has not been charged with any crime in connection with Sherri’s disappearance.”

What happened to Sherri Papini on the day she was abducted?

Papini says she was ready to end things with Reyes because he was getting too attached. On the day she was abducted, they had planned to meet up. “It was supposed to be the goodbye,” she claims.

However, when Reyes was “pushy” with her that morning, she decided to go for a run and let him know when she wanted to meet up later. “I started my run, and when I’d gotten to the end where the pavement ends and where the dirt road is, I saw a vehicle pull up and then back up,” she alleges. “That’s when I realized that it was James. My cellphone fell and when I reached out to get my phone, that is the last thing that I remember.”

Again, this is a different story that Papini previously shared. She previously told Keith that she purposely put her phone and headphones on the ground, along with hair that she pulled out of her head, so that he would know she’d been abducted. Now, Papini says, “There was an elaboration around it, sure. There was embellishment around it, sure. But it was my first attempt to say, ‘I was in trouble.'”

“I have no memory of getting in the back of this vehicle. I have no memory of what was said or exchanged, or how he managed to knock me out or get me in the back,” she adds.

Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie, Monday and Tuesday, May 26 and 27, 9/8c, ID and Max