Julia Faustyna made headlines earlier this month when she claimed to be Madeleine McCann, the three-year-old girl kidnapped from her bed in Portugal in May 2007 while on vacation with her parents at a resort.
Faustyna first made the claim on Instagram before making TikTok videos. She now has over a million followers on Instagram.
Several people are skeptical of Faustyna because she is an aspiring model. Is she the actual Madeleine?
On Instagram, she wrote, “I started doing my own research, I discovered what happened to Madeleine McCann and I connected the dots, I need to know the truth. I need [a] dna test and I need to talk with Madeleine’s parents. Help me!”
According to The Daily Beast, Gerry and Kate McCann, the missing girl’s parents, have agreed to a DNA test to see if they are related to Faustyna.
Their daughter was last seen sleeping next to her twin two-year-old siblings while on vacation in Praia de Luz on May 3, 2007.
Madeleine, who would have been 19 years old if she were still alive, is presumed dead. It is likely she was murdered on the night of her supposed kidnapping. Polish police have a suspect, but he has never been arrested.
Faustyna, a 21-year-old musician, dreams of becoming a successful model.
She has spoken little about her personal life. She claims she irregularly went to school as a child.
Faustyna says she can’t remember much of her childhood, is unsure of her age, and has never seen her birth certificate. She says she does recall vacations to a hot location with a beach. She claims she has no recollection of her relatives.
Faustyna is originally from Poland but now lives in Germany.
Although there is no proof that Faustyna is the missing British child, there are some odd similarities. The 21-year-old apparently heard from her grandmother a few months ago that she could be the missing Madeleine.
She’s talked about how she and little Madeleine had comparable physical traits, such as a brown spot on each girl’s eye. She believes their young faces are similar and has released images of herself and Madeleine to compare. She has the same mark on her cheek as Madeleine, as seen in images.
Faustyna also claims to be distrustful of her parents as she hasn’t seen photographs of her mother pregnant.
Faustyna posted on Instagram a police artist’s rendition of a man who witnesses reported dragging away a young child in the Portuguese resort area where Madeleine’s parents were staying. She claimed that she recognized the man and that he reminded her of her “abuser.”
Faustyna said she was victimized by a “German pedophile,” but did not elaborate.
Francisco Marco, a private investigator with ties to the Madeleine McCann case, expressed suspicion about her claims, saying they don’t make sense.
The Polish police do not believe Faustyna is Madeleine McCann.
Faustyna isn’t the first to claim to be Madeleine.
A young university student in Manchester claimed to have the same brown spot on her iris as well as a comparable mole on her thigh in 2017.
Another was a girl who claimed to be British but resided in Rome. Her statements were also widely disseminated on social media.
Both assertions were proven to be false.
Faustyna’s family is said to have declined to take a DNA test in order to unravel the mystery. Her mother claims to have evidence that the girl is her biological daughter.
Her family says that Faustyna suffers from mental health issues and ignored their pleas to stop what they call her “lies and manipulation.”