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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Phil Harrison, Hannah Verdier, Priya Elan and Simon Wardell

TV tonight: the jawdropping story of the mother who faked her son’s illness

A family photograph of a father, mother, a little girl and a boy with tubes in his face
Toxic fantasy … from left, Chris, Matthew, Laura and Lisa Hayden-Johnson in I Love You to Death. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Love You to Death

9pm, Channel 4
“He seemed to be allergic to the 21st century,” said journalist Paul Levie of Matthew Hayden-Johnson, a child from Torbay who, his mother, Lisa, claimed, was unable to walk, eat or breathe without medical assistance. However, as this jawdropping documentary series shows, Matthew’s litany of disability was a fantasy maintained by Lisa. With testimony from Matthew and Lisa themselves, it tracks a toxic fantasy as it took root, then fell apart. Phil Harrison

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