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30th March 2023
04:12pm BST
The amount of money a 21-year-old woman, who believes she is Madeleine McCann, has made since going public has been revealed.
Julia Wendell, who is also known by the names Julia Faustyna and Julia Wandelt, went viral in February after sharing what she claimed as “evidence” on Instagram that she is the girl who went missing in Praia da Luz in 2007. The evidence included some freckles on her leg and an eye defect. The 21-year-old, who would be two years older than Maddie who would turn 19 in April, has said she does not remember large chunks of her childhood, or the moment she was supposedly taken. She has also claimed she was abused by a German paedophile who looks like someone who was once a suspect in Maddie’s disappearance. Polish police have disputed Julia’s evidence and her parents have claimed she is unwell.
This week Wendell appeared on US TV talk show Dr Phil as she awaits the results of a DNA test to prove if she is the toddler that went missing in 2007.
After her appearance, speculation about whether Julia had many any money since going public with her claim arose leading to Dr Fia Johansson, a private investigator helping Julia throughout the process, answering those questions.
In an Instagram post, she said: "Hello guys - about Dr Phil if we made money... no. We didn’t actually get a dime to be involved with Dr Phil’s show.
"We didn’t receive anything, Julia [didn’t] receive anything, Julia just went on the stage and was herself and told the truth.
A lot of you ask if Julia made some sort of money by going to any type of press, Radar [RadarOnline] for example, all other things… no.
"We did not pay them anything, they did not pay us anything."
Dr Johansson has previously explained that her family in Poland have denied the claims while Julia's parents have blocked her number and refused to take a DNA test of their own.
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