Kira Cousins shared this photo of her “daughter” to Facebook. Photo / Kira Cousins
Neave McRobert, a friend of Cousins, posted to Facebook and TikTok to detail the hoax.
She said while “everyone got conned by” Cousins, she felt “worse because I’m one of the few people to meet this baby”.
McRobert claimed Cousins had gone so far as to text the “father”, Jamie Gardner, to tell him Bonnie-Leigh had died when the deception was uncovered.
Another family friend told the Daily Record her suspicions had been raised when Cousin visited her home and she saw her “lumpy” bump.
“When she posted the picture of her supposed baby, I knew it looked like a doll but I would have been slaughtered if I had spoken out about all this and said I didn’t think any of it was real.”
The Daily Record reports Cousins has now apologised for the hoax in a lengthy Instagram post.
“I wasn’t pregnant. There was no baby. I made it up and kept it going way too far,” she wrote.
“I faked scans, messages, a whole birth story, and acted like a doll was a real baby.”
Cousins went on to claim she “just didn’t know how to stop” and admitted she had “f***ed up”, apologising to the father and his family for the lies.
“I made you out to be horrible people when really, I was the one in the wrong. Completely.”
She also responded to criticisms of her victims, stating the doll was able to realistically move and mimic cries.
The Daily Mail reports a police complaint has not currently been lodged in relation to the incident.