A ‘Catfish’ subject steps out of the shadows
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EXCLUSIVE: For more than eight months, Angela Wesselman-Pierce, the woman who holds the key to the mystery at the center of docu-thriller “Catfish,†has remained silent. Ever since the movie became a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, she’s avoided all requests for interviews and hasn’t even been seen by many of the locals who live in her small Michigan town.
That will change next week, when Wesselman-Pierce breaks her silence to appear on the ABC newsmagazine show ‘20/20.’
A publicist for the show confirmed that she has been interviewed for a segment about the film that is slated to air next Friday.
‘Catfish’ follows young New York City photographer Nev Schulman as he enters into a complex online relationship. While Schulman (whose brother Ariel and friend Henry Joost directed the movie) has been heavily promoting the film since its limited release last month, Wesselman-Pierce has shunned the spotlight. She declined to appear at the film’s premiere at Sundance and has not publicly shared her thoughts about the movie -- she even hung up on us twice when we tried to reach her last month.
‘I think she’s probably had a lot of people who want to talk to her, and I don’t know how much she’s comfortable with talking,’ said Nev Schulman when we caught up with him earlier today. ‘She said she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to participate in the promotion of the film, and she ended up choosing to be a part of a newsmagazine show.’
Schulman said he spoke with Wesselman-Pierce after she filmed ‘20/20’ but says he’s not sure what she will reveal in the interview.
‘Look, she’s expressive. She has a voice, and she wants to be heard,’ he said. ‘All I know is that she told them her side of the story.’
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