Brett Fairley Reveals Untold Details of His Viral TikTok Paternity Fraud Story

You’re not alone if you’ve been watching Brett Fairley’s viral TikTok series unfold like a digital Jerry Springer reboot. But if you thought you knew the whole story already, prepare yourself—because what Brett revealed on the latest episode of The Real Stuff with Lucie Fink is even messier than what made it to social media.

It started with a one-night stand

Before becoming an internet sensation and dating fan-favorite hospice nurse Hadley, Brett was just a 24-year-old guy eating crawfish with his brother when he stumbled into Maria Nguyen at her birthday party. “It was really just me being 24. I’m drunk, and I’m going home with someone tonight,” he says of their initial one-night stand.

Fast-forward a few months to April 2021: Maria texts Brett out of nowhere, asking him to be a sperm donor. Not because they were in a relationship (they weren’t) or even close friends (they weren’t that either), but because, as she told him, “she’s been single forever,” and all her friends were having kids.

“I felt like I was doing something nice for somebody,” Brett admits. “Like, if someone asked you nicely for, like, you know, hey, can I borrow $20? I was like, yeah.” Except this $20 favor involved unprotected sex, two weekends in a row, and the eventual news that Maria was pregnant—an event that prompted Brett’s sarcastic but now prophetic reaction: “Sick. Congrats.”

This was, in hindsight, not the world’s best idea. But Brett had no idea how messy it would get. 

From donor to dad—without consent

What followed was a slow but deliberate invasion of Brett’s life. “It felt like this stranger… was trying to hijack my life,” he tells Lucie. Maria started inserting herself into Brett’s world—friending his family on Facebook, cozying up to his mother, and spinning a narrative that they were a happy little couple expecting a child together. She even asked Brett’s mom to care for the baby if anything ever happened to her. “It was like someone doing identity fraud, but socially,” Brett says.

Despite the initial agreement that he wouldn’t be involved beyond the donation, Brett’s parents pushed him to reconsider. “They said, ‘A little girl is going to grow up without a dad,’” he recalls. That guilt-tripped him into flying home for the birth—and eventually signing the birth certificate and an “acknowledgment of paternity” form that made him legally responsible, a decision he now calls the actual biggest mistake.

The financial fallout and emotional cost

From there, things spiraled. Maria stayed in Brett’s Airbnb for free—costing him roughly $30,000 in lost income—while also demanding thousands more in child support. He wired her $10,000 upfront and paid $750 a month, even as she berated him over text (“I hope you fucking die” was quite the winner) and tried to gatekeep access to the baby depending on his compliance. “She was withholding the baby and using her as a pawn,” Brett says.

It was textbook manipulation—and Brett, admittedly naive and eager to do the right thing, kept falling into the trap.

Nurse Hadley connects the dots

The plot twist came when Hadley, Brett’s now-girlfriend and a hospice nurse with a sharp mind, realized something was off. The baby’s birthdate didn’t line up with Brett’s timeline. After crunching the numbers, she asked where he’d been during the conception window—and he wasn’t even in the same state.

Two paternity tests later, confirming a zero percent match, Brett’s world simultaneously imploded and clarified. “I didn’t believe it,” he says. “I thought I was reading it wrong. Then I called my mom crying.”

Grieving a daughter that was never his

This wasn’t just about being duped. It was about grieving a daughter he loved deeply, one who called him “Dada” and who he held in his arms first at the hospital. “I lost so many firsts I’ll never get back,” he says. “It’s something no parent should ever have to go through.”

Brett made the agonizing choice to cut ties for his emotional safety—and for the child’s, too. “She was two and a half. She probably won’t remember me,” he says quietly, “but I’ll never forget her.”

Justice, silence, and breaking the gag order

Maria didn’t just scam Brett emotionally and financially—she leveraged the court system to silence him. After the paternity test proved he wasn’t the father, she slapped him with a gag order. But Brett is done playing quiet. “I was tired of being silent,” he says. “Narcissists want to keep you quiet. That’s how they stay in control.”

Now he’s speaking out—online, in interviews, and on the record—because paternity fraud is real, devastating, and still wildly under-acknowledged in both legal frameworks and cultural conversations.

Brett’s goal is to push for mandatory DNA testing at birth—not as an insult to women, but to prevent situations like this. “If a man is confident he’s the father, he should have no problem proving it,” he says. “If a woman resists that idea? That’s a red flag.”