The bad actor: who was the ‘fake Spielberg’?
In a new Audible podcast, Charlie Webster revisits the extraordinary scam of a 27-year-old man who passed himself off as Steven Spielberg’s teenage nephew to enrol at an exclusive US high school. Here, she tells Nick Levine why a traumatic event from her past inspired her to take up the story
In the social media era, we can all present a slightly glossier version of ourselves: someone who is more successful, less stressed out, with fewer crow’s feet – thank you, Facetune! But some people – a vanishingly small number of audacious tricksters – have taken the idea of personal reinvention to extreme and morally reprehensible lengths. When we hear the story of “fake heiress” Anna Delvey, who defrauded banks and New York high society, or the infamous “Tinder Swindler” Simon Leviev, who posed as a mogul’s son to con women into lending him money, it’s hard not to be drawn in by the psychological intrigue.
What drove these people? How did they get away with it (at least to begin with)? And would we have been smart enough to rumble their ruse? Perpetrators of what we might call “prestige fraud” – high-stakes scams with the potential to boost bank balances and social status – are fascinating antiheroes who have us rapt. “I think on some level we’re dazzled by the audacity of these people,” says Charlie Webster, an award-winning broadcaster and journalist.
Webster made the hit podcasts Scamanda, about a woman who faked having terminal cancer to extract donations from acquaintances and strangers, and Unicorn Girl, which explored the bizarre exploits of Candace Rivera, the CEO of an anti-human- trafficking, non-profit organisation, who was jailed for using her charity to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars. “But whenever I tell a story like this in a podcast,” Webster adds, “people always say to me afterwards: ‘Imagine if that person had channelled all their energy and audacity into something good.’”
Fame faker
SPLBERG, a gripping podcast that recently premiered on Audible, is the latest stranger-than-fiction tale of someone who embraced the “fake it till you make it” ethos much too literally. Produced and hosted by Webster, it drills into the riveting and ultimately chilling story of a 27-year-old man who posed as the 14-year-old nephew of Steven Spielberg in order to gain a place at a Virginia private school. To make the scam possible, he even legally changed his name to Jonathan Taylor Spielberg. “I do think the illusion of fame played a big part in what he was able to do – the Spielberg name basically blindsided people,” Webster says.
From the day in 1998 that he cruised on to campus in a BMW bearing the personalised number plate SPLBERG, Jonathan Taylor Spielberg went method to convince teachers and fellow pupils that he was a Hollywood actor attending a regular high school as research for a film role. He dangled invites to the MTV Video Music Awards and claimed Ben Affleck would accompany him to prom – both barefaced lies – before he was finally caught more than a year later.
Jonathan Taylor Spielberg’s first and middle names, borrowed from the 90s teen idol Jonathan Taylor Thomas, are a handy reminder that this prestige fraud story couldn’t unfold in the same way today. In 2026, a quick Google of “does Steven Spielberg have an actor nephew?” would instantly expose him as a fantasist.
From invention to deception
Sheffield-born Webster grew up on the other side of the Atlantic, but she’s a similar age to the unsuspecting high schoolers who were hoodwinked, so she’s well placed to set the scene. Back in the late 90s, when no one owned a smartphone, the name “Spielberg” carried glamour and gravitas. Webster also explains how St Paul VI Catholic high school in sleepy Fairfax County was, in many ways, the perfect mark. Though it charged fees, the school was only established in 1983, so it was still trying to build its reputation. “It was a school with aspirations, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Webster says. “But [the staff] just didn’t see the glaring danger in front of them. It’s important to learn from that because it’s not like nothing like this ever happens now, more than 25 years later.”
As the story gets darker – quite a lot darker – Webster uses a personal touch to convey the grave implications of a 27-year-old man posing as a 14-year-old boy in a school of genuine minors. Back in 2014, Webster revealed that she was groomed and sexually abused as a 15-year-old by her running coach; the man was later sentenced to 10 years in prison and placed on the sex offenders register. Webster says during production, she had to ask herself how she could convey the seriousness of the safeguarding failures covered in SPLBERG. To find answers, she says: “I used my own story. I don’t tell all of what happened to me, but I touch on it to try and help people understand.”
The resulting eight-part podcast is completely riveting, sensitive and empathetic to the teenagers involved, and ultimately thought-provoking. “I really want to help people understand manipulative behaviour, which is why I tell stories that are super-layered and psychological,” Webster says. “What I do isn’t passive story reporting; it’s active storytelling. I don’t want to tell you what I think – I want to show you how it happened so you can make up your own mind.”
The National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331
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