American student who lied to get into Cambridge says she did it because she ‘f***king likes chic’

An American influencer who made her way to Cambridge University said she did it because she loves the idea of ​​”fancy.”

Virginia native Caroline Calloway, now 31, has been dubbed the ‘Gatsby of Cambridge’ after it was revealed that she tricked the prestigious university into giving her a diploma place in 2013 by lying about her qualifications on her application form.

In a new interview with the TelegraphCalloway, who regularly documented her life on social media while studying art history at St. Edmund’s College, she said she faked her application because she “f***ing likes chic” and wanted to experience the eccentricities of upper-class English life.

In 2015, on the back of an ever-growing Instagram following who collected posts about her life as a Cambridge student, she received a book advance in a $500,000 deal to tell her life story – but failed to finish it. delivering, fobbing off fans two. years later that the premise of the book had been ‘sexist’.

In 2019, a former girlfriend, Natalie Beach, published an op-ed in The Cut claiming she was, in fact, responsible for Calloway’s success and was the person behind her famous Instagram captions — and the influencer’s life quickly unraveled.

Speaking to journalist Celia Walden from her inherited apartment in Tampa, Florida, she said she has now repaid the original advance in full and eventually wrote a self-published memoir — called Scammer — about her time at the British university, in which she said she’s ‘f***ing bat**** insane’ not ’embracing’ her story.

She told Walden that she had found it impossible to resist the temptation of high society in England, saying, “I just love everything about Oxbridge and posh country houses.” I wish I was attracted to something more chic and socially acceptable, but the fact is, I fucking love chic!’

Her picturesque photos of life in Cambridge, which were part of a blog she started in 2012 about the experiences of an American university student, attracted thousands of fans.

She told MailOnline when she was a student at St Edmund’s College, “I feel like I’m in Harry Potter, turning up in my robes for dinner in the Great Hall and having wonderful three-course meals.”

She told Telegraph journalist Celia Walden that she would be “insane” if she didn’t embrace her story; her former friend Natalie Beach revealed that she helped her write many of the messages that won her fans over in an article for The Cut in 2019

Virginia native Calloway, now 31, rose to fame through her Instagram social media posts while studying art history — she’s now written a new memoir about her experience titled “Scammer.”

She studied at Cambridge from 2013 to 2016 and now says she was in the grips of a prescription drug addiction at the time, taking the amphetamine Adderall.

Cambridge University has not commented on Calloway’s admissions about how she achieved her university place, telling MailOnline earlier this year: ‘We cannot comment on individual students, but we take statements like this very seriously.’

In 2019, she had hosted a series of “creative workshops” costing $165 per session, but Calloway’s reputation began to falter when she was linked to notorious Fyre Festival scam artist Billy McFarland after the expensive workshops she hosted failed to meet met expectations. The following year, The Guardian reported that Miss Calloway had refunded disappointed clients.

The influencer, who says she now takes eight anti-depressants and anti-anxiety tablets a day, saw her lies exposed by Beach around the same time her father committed suicide.

Ms. Calloway’s social media posts were coveted by thousands of fans who envied her lifestyle

It was alleged that the captions for her Instagram posts were written by one of her friends

“I feel like I’m in Harry Potter, turning up in my robes for dinner in the Great Hall and having wonderful three-course meals,” she told MailOnline when she was a student. Shown here with one of her main corollas

Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway was accused of buying followers to create a fan base for herself in order to sell her unwritten memoir

Ms. Calloway jumped for joy and often seemed to be having the most wonderful time online

Mrs Calloway’s popularity led to a £400,000 book deal, the result of which – titled Scammer – was released in May

Although Miss Calloway defended herself in TV interviews and through her Instagram account, the controversy eventually caused her to withdraw from social media and delete her Instagram posts.

However, before wiping her account clean, she revealed in a lengthy post that she earned most of the money she owed her publisher through an OnlyFans account.

She told the Telegraph that she would offer an unashamed “F*** you” to her former boyfriend who exposed her untruths.

After being black on Instagram for several years, she revived her account this year to reveal the cover of her new book, Scammer.

She captioned the book’s photo: “Babe wake up, the new manic pixie dream book is coming out in mid-May.”

New York-born Cambridge University student Caroline Calloway gained a huge Instagram following with her picturesque photos and wistful captions that propped up a blog she started writing in 2012

Caroline Calloway photographed outside the Rad Cam at Oxford University with some flowers in her hand