Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Woman fakes kidnapping in fact-based drama; violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In HOAX: THE KIDNAPPING OF SHERRI PAPINI, Papini (Jaime King) was a wife and mom to two young children. In 2016, she colluded with her ex-boyfriend to stage her kidnapping and disappeared for 22 days. The pair had no plan. No ransom note was sent. No next steps were outlined. When she got tired of hiding in his small place, she had him brand her with a hot iron and shoot hockey pucks at her face. She later claimed the resulting wounds were part of the torture perpetrated by the fictional abductors. Police detective Molly Rowland (Lossen Chambers) was skeptical and as people from Sherri's past came forward with stories of her habitual lies, the officer pieced together the case that brought about Papini's arrest and imprisonment.
Is It Any Good?
Given the low budget, Lifetime does a decent job representing the weirdness of Papini. If Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini were not based on a true story, it would be difficult to believe a person as insistently wrong-headed as Papini could exist in the real world. But she does. s
For true crime obsessives, here's a tidbit the movie was made too early to know about: In 2022, Papini signed a plea agreement admitting she "knowingly planned and participated in her own hoax kidnapping and then made materially false statements to FBI agents" about the crime. But in 2025, while hawking a book about the ordeal, she admitted the Mexican women were fictional, but claimed anew that she was in fact kidnapped and held against her will by her ex-boyfriend. Maybe this story is to be continued?
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the case this movie is based on. What do you know about the real story? Where could you go to learn more?
In recent years, after serving time and admitting she pretended to be kidnapped and lied to the FBI about it, Sherri has contradicted her guilty plea admission and claimed again that she was kidnapped. What do you make of this development?
What are some of the harms Sherri did by faking her kidnapping? How do you think her children might have felt to learn her disappearance was faked? How might police resources spent looking for her kidnappers have been used to help solve real crimes against real victims?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : January 28, 2023
- Cast : Jaime King , Lossen Chambers , Matt Hamilton
- Director : Marta Borowski
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Director(s) , Female Movie Actor(s) , Black Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Writer(s)
- Studio : Lifetime
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : Family Stories
- Run time : 88 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : April 27, 2026
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