Weeks after Sherri Papini’s headline-making kidnapping ordeal was unpacked in Hulu’s Perfect Wife docuseries, Papini is set to break her own silence.
Perfect Wife explains how Papini disappeared in 2016, then reemerged, claiming she had been kidnapped. Eventually, police accused Papini of orchestrating the kidnapping herself. The docuseries is told through the eyes of Sherri’s husband, Keith, as well as close friends and law enforcement. Now production is underway on an untitled, multipart Investigation Discovery series that will feature the first public interview with Papini since her disappearance.
“Sherri Papini drew worldwide attention when she went missing and then again, when she returned,” Jason Sarlanis, president of ID said in a statement to Vanity Fair. “While many perspectives have been told, there is one point of view that the world hasn’t heard and that is from Sherri herself. Investigation Discovery will present a new side of Sherri Papini’s case—told by her in her own words.” The project is slated for release in 2025.
Papini made national news after she vanished while out on a run near her Redding, California, home on November 2, 2016. Three weeks later, on Thanksgiving Day, Papini was found by the side of a remote road, covered in injuries, and adorned with a chain around her waist. She told police that two Latinx women had taken her hostage, before starving, beating, and branding her. But for years after, law enforcement inquiries came up short and questions surrounding Papini’s abduction persisted.
In 2022, Papini was arrested and charged with orchestrating her kidnapping as an elaborate hoax after DNA found on her clothing was traced back to an ex-boyfriend she’d actually been staying with (he was not charged in aiding her disappearance). She eventually reached a plea agreement that sentenced her to 18 months in prison for committing fraud and lying to a federal officer. When asked by a federal judge if she had been kidnapped, she answered, “No.”
Keith Papini, who filed for divorce two days after his wife’s sentencing and now has sole custody of their two children, told Vanity Fair last month: “I loved this woman. I would have done anything for her. I love our children. I was blindsided.”
Sherri was released from prison last fall and is permitted professionally supervised visits with her kids once a month. Perfect Wife director Michael Beach Nichols told VF last month that Sherri never responded to interview requests for his docuseries. He also said he thinks that Keith is still “worried that Sherri will be believed, because he believed her for six years.” Nichols added, “Based on what we’ve heard from people that are closer to Sherri, it seems like she’s sort of sticking to her story, that she was abducted. There’s a whole story that she’s still telling.”
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