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Abby Ellin

  • Award-winning Journalist and Social Commentator
  • Expert in Cultural Dynamics—Imposters, Gaslighting, Trust and Truth

About

Abby Ellin stands out as an expert in the uncomfortable issues of today—trust and treachery; underdogs; duplicity and gaslighting. With typical energy, Abby summarizes her brand as sturm und drang people don't like to talk about. In constant demand for writing and social commentary, she is a familiar voice in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on ABC News. Her recent work includes Executive Producer and Host of “Impostors: The Commander,” the second season of the #1 Spotify original podcast series.

Abby's cautionary yet resilient tales rise above human interest as she teaches everyone how to build a sixth sense for trust. She details the path to trusting others, trusting yourself, and finding truth in the balance. Abby knows well the pitfalls when trust goes off the rails, including messy chunks of hope, denial, embarrassment, retreat, and self-soothing. Her experience led to her best-selling book Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married, as she laid bare her past. Now she passionately gives voice to others who can't recognize or tell their own stories.

Abby chooses to see the hope possible by sweeping away the narcissists, con men, charlatans, gangsters, and just plain bad people dominating headlines, lauded rather than vilified. Why does The Sopranos get more notice than The Good Place? What are the policy implications of normalizing government fraud and deception? Where are we going as a society—Heaven Can Wait or Idiocracy?

As a modern woman with varied Renaissance worthy talents, Abby has gathered accolades with everything she's touched—best-selling books, award winning journalism, Oscar and Emmy nominated film work. Possessing the rare sense of a zeitgeist bloodhound, Abby's finger is often on the pulse well before the mainstream can recognize any shift.

Funny, engaging, and insightful, Abby captures audience attention with tales relatable across the board. She is a great fit with listeners in need of certainty and discovery during strange times. Telling compelling yet relatable stories are the underpinnings of Abby's work as she chronicles life with honesty, wit, and lessons for all.

Content

Topics

  • The Decade of Deception. Everywhere you turn, it seems another scam has come to light. Consider the most popular stories of the last few years: The (fake) Fyre Festival. The Tinder Swindler. Dirty John. Fake heiress Anna Delvey. The Shrink Next Door. Dr. Death. Varsity Blues. Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. This doesn't take into account political stories of deception. Journalist and deception expert Abby Ellin has firsthand experience with love fraud—she was engaged to a real-live Tinder Swindler, a Navy doctor/pathological liar who went to jail for writing fake prescriptions for narcotics. Ellin shares the story of this man, whom she dubs The Commander, in her best-selling book Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married. She also reports on women and men who have been deceived in love, business, friendship, and by family members. She explains the difference between pathological lies and white lies; why we're all so willing to trust other people; why so many of us are so susceptible to deception; what gaslighting and narcissistic abuse does to a person's sense of self; why NOT to feel bad for being scammed—and how to protect yourself from it in the future.

Keywords: Whistle blower, deception, lying, false identity, women's issues, lying in social media, double lives, deception and relationships, gaslighting

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