A French woman who released a YouTube video to apparently find her Australian holiday romance after falling pregnant has confirmed it was a hoax.
The video of "Natalie Amyot" making a plea to viewers to help her find the man was met with a combination of support, derision and a hefty dose of scepticism
She claimed in the video that she was searching for a man she met in the popular tourist resort of Mooloolaba.
Describing how it was "love at first sight" for her when the pair met at O'Malley's Irish Pub, she said they spent a "beautiful" night together.
Ms Amyot went on to stress the importance of finding the man as she has "no family of my own".
"If he doesn't want to know then that’s OK but I really want to try and find him," she wrote in the video's description.
"I hope that the Sunny coast community will help me. Merci beacoup."
Local tourist boards have denied the video is part of any PR involving them, ITV News reported citing Australian media reported.
But a day after the original video was uploaded, a second emerged with the 26-year-old announcing "I found him", before revealing Andy Sellar, the owner of a social media company.
He said: "This has been a viral video for Holiday Mooloolaba. My name is Andy Sellar and I own a company called Sunny Coast social media.
"We do viral videos for businesses. Now I know there is going to be a lot of you that are upset by this... maybe not too happy."
He went on to defend the actress who portrayed Natalie Amyot and said he had been the one posting as the character on Facebook.
"We just wanted to put Mooloolaba on the map because it's a wonderful place. So thank you for watching and we are going to do many, many more videos like this," he said.
