Sherri Papini tells her side of the story and asks, ‘Haven’t you ever lied?’

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Sherri Papini, the Northern California mother who faked her own kidnapping, went “missing” for 22 days, and staged an elaborate 2016 hoax, is telling her side of the story for the first time.

Later this month, ID will air a docuseries, “Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie,” featuring one-on-one interviews.

“Haven’t you ever lied? And then, has that lie been blown up?” she says in ID’s trailer. “I went missing in 2016. I was tortured. I was branded. I was chained to a wall. All of that is true. I did keep some secrets from you, though.”

ID says its interviews reveal Papini’s mindset during her disappearance and perspective on the scandal. The trailer states that it will explore whether Papini was the “victim” or the “villain.”

Papini, 42, was convicted of lying to federal agents and mail fraud. After she was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison, the hoaxster was locked up at Federal Correctional Institution Victorville prison. She was freed from custody in the summer of 2023 after spending just nine months in custody.

At the time of her kidnapping hoax in 2016, Papini was a married stay-at-home mom. Today, she is divorced and reportedly fighting to get partial custody of her two children back. The children live with their father, Keith.

Papini’s disappearance in Redding, Calif., set off frantic search efforts across Northern California. The whole time Papini was missing, she was staying with her ex-boyfriend at his house in Orange County, hiding nearly 600 miles away from where she vanished, investigators said. The ex-boyfriend told investigators that Papini had asked him to pick her up and let her stay with him.

She re-appeared running along Interstate 5 in Woodland, Calif. on Nov. 24, 2016. Papini had a chain around her waist and self-inflicted injuries on her body. She told her husband and law enforcement officers that she was out jogging when two Hispanic women kidnapped her at gunpoint, drove her to an unknown location, and kept her in a bedroom closet.

Papini stuck by her story for years until she was confronted by detectives in an interrogation room who presented her with DNA evidence and information from her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes. A detective flatly told her, “DNA doesn’t lie. (Reyes) 100% told us what happened.”

When detectives dropped a bombshell on her web of lies, Papini burst into tears. A medical exam found DNA on her clothing that matched her former lover’s DNA.

Days after his wife pleaded guilty, Keith Papini filed for divorce. In her interview with ID, Sherri Papini says that she and her husband “both participated in some pretty toxic behaviors.”

ID’s four-part docuseries premieres on May 26, and episodes will stream on Max.