An eagerly awaited Netflix documentary, Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare, is set to tell a west London woman’s near decade-long catfishing tale when it arrives on the streaming platform on October 16.
The story, which first came to prominence in 2021 via a podcast of the same name, follows 43-year-old Kirat Assi, who falls in love and enters a decade-long relationship with a man she’s never met.
The event assistant and radio presenter said that she “felt loved unconditionally” by Bobby Jandu as the couple had intimate and sometimes sexual conversations over text and Skype between 2009 and 2018. But whenever Assi requested to meet with him Jandu, whom she believed to be a heart doctor, came up with an excuse.
The person behind the account told Assi a number of lies – including that her lover had been shot, had suffered from a brain tumour, and was in a witness protection programme in the United States.
“What happened to me is just one crazy story,” Assi says in the documentary’s trailer. “You can’t make it up. We’re talking about 10 years of my life.”
The documentary follows several twists and turns in the story, with Assi feeling emotionally manipulated and controlled by the person behind the account. After eventually hiring a private detective, Assi was shocked to discover that the person she had spent nearly a decade emotionally invested in wasn’t Bobby Jandu after all – it was her female cousin, Simran Bhogal. Bhogal created a fake account and a fake network of close friends to make her fake identity appear more believable to Assi.
But who is the real Bobby Jandu, and what’s happened to Assi and Bhogal since the saga?
Who is the real Sweet Bobby?
Although Assi wasn’t in a relationship with him, the real Sweet Bobby – Bobby Jandu – is a cardiologist living in Brighton. Bhogal stole Jandu’s identity and pretended the doctor lived in New York to engage in what Assi thought was a long-distance emotional relationship, all without Jandu’s knowledge.
Jandu himself appears in the documentary, where his reaction to the scandal is set to be revealed. “I’ve never spoken to her in my life,” he says in the trailer.
What happened to Kirat Assi afterwards?
In an interview with Sky News to mark the documentary’s release, Assi said that she was back to her “old fiery self” and was on the dating scene again. However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing - Assi said that she faced a tirade of online abuse, bullying and “victim-shaming” since the podcast detailing her story went viral.
“The person that did it needs to be held accountable. I can’t bear the brunt of being blamed for bringing it out in the open. I’ve had to do what’s right for me,” she said.
Who was behind the fake account?
It was revealed that Assi’s cousin, Simran Bhogal, was behind the fake account. As well as being relatives, Assi has said that Bhogal was a close friend and often supported her when she was struggling with what she thought was her relationship with Jandu.
Assi told Sky News that she hadn’t seen her cousin since she confessed to being behind the account. She reported the saga to the police in 2018 and no charges were brought against Bhogal, with the case being closed a year later. But with the increased attention on the story since, the case has reportedly been re-opened for investigation.
Where is Simran Bhogal now?
According to Bustle, during the podcast team’s research stages, they were able to find Bhogal and reach out – although it’s not revealed if she responded. That same year, the MailOnline reported that she lived in north-west London with her parents.
In the podcast, it’s revealed that Bhogal worked as a vice president at a large British Bank. “You’d know the name,” the podcast’s host, reporter Alexi Mostrous, says. “And it was a pretty big deal.”
Although the bank’s name isn’t mentioned in the podcast, Reddit users claimed that it was Barclays – which seems to be confirmed by a 2018 X post by recruitment management platform Talent Ticker: “Barclays promotes Simran Bhogal to Vice President, COO & Finance Business Partner,” the post reads.
The podcast reveals that Bhogal left her job. However, details regarding her current whereabouts, job and other parts of her life remain a mystery. It also appears that Bhogal has no social media profiles.
