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MARCH 4, 2004 at 1:52 PM
Posted by CHEESER
Source: DanRadcliffe.com
Actor Daniel Radcliffe's father is urging fans not to respond to people who claim to be Dan online, as he never communicates with fans in that way. According to the plea, received this morning by DanRadcliffe.com
and DanRadcliffe.co.uk, a girl and her mother from Chile showed up at the Radcliffes' door recently, after supposedly talking to the Harry Potter star via e-mail:
Dear Jenna and Page,
In the light of an unfortunate incident which happened at our home yesterday I would be grateful if you could post the following message from us.
We received several calls at our home during the morning from a girl who had travelled from Chile to meet Dan. When we explained that this was not possible she became upset. Later in the day, when Marcia and I were leaving our house the girl and her mother appeared asking again to see Dan - again we said he wasn't there and we don't encourage visitors to our house which is strictly private.
Again, the girl became very upset and distressed - and this is where it became very worrying for us as Dan's parents on behalf of Daniel's fans. She presented us with two e-mails from someone pretending to be Daniel who said he were hoping to see her in London. Daniel has said this in his newsletters and I must reiterate: do not respond to anyone saying they are Daniel and certainly never travel to London to see him on the strength of a very dubious e-mail.
Daniel never communicates with fans via the Internet or e-mail for this very reason - he doesn't want anyone to be duped into corresponding with someone pretending to be him. For his fans' sake and safety there are no exceptions to this rule and anyone claiming to be Daniel Radcliffe is, I'm afraid, lying.
We felt extremely upset that this girl had been tricked in this way. PLEASE don't let it happen to anyone else.
Any help you can give us on this matter to protect Dan's fans will be very welcome.
Many thanks.
ALAN
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Auror
Points: 2303
padfoot5312 says:
yes it is sad that someone could do such a thing People need to think about what they do to people.
Posted Mar 6, 2004 at 10:55 PM EST
Professor
Points: 1122
Immortal Vegemite says:
Thats really horrible for someone to do that to a fan. Poor girl, although it was rather foolish to believe it. And poor Dan and his parents, they must have felt so bad..
Posted Mar 6, 2004 at 11:50 PM EST
Muggle
Points: 68
Natalie Potter says:
I feel horrible for that poor girl. But, also she and her mother shouldn't have believed that person that was pretending to be Dan. I mean they should have put some thought into it before they went from Brazil all the way to London.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 1:32 AM EST
Professor
Points: 1191
mrsmad says:
Oh who ever did that to that poor girl was really mean! I hope they catch him. It was a wonder her mother believed
it her mother should have known better. I don't think the girl was stupid just, nieve.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 9:17 AM EST
Head Girl
Points: 421
parvatiPatil89 says:
you know, I think she was probably taking a trip to london anyway, because of the way he said " im hoping to see you in london", but i think alot of the responsibility falls on the mother, who obviously didn't use her sense to realize that no one can jsut go to a celebrities house and ask to see them
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 10:38 AM EST
Wizard
Points: 603
Padfoot7 says:
That is creepy as heck! They traveled all the way from Chile just to see Dan? Even if she thought she was talking to Dan, this girl (and her mom) have some serious issues that need to be addressed by a doctor...
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 11:22 AM EST
Head Girl
Points: 442
Adria_Tonks says:
That girl was really dumb to believve anyone over the internet, even her mother, You should never trust people over the net. feel bad for Dan tho, since he has to put up with it...well thats what you get for being a star...
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 2:43 PM EST
Witch
Points: 561
zorro says:
That is why i iam allways suspitio when stares are in the internit writing because i herd somany thing that have hapen like 45 yer old saing therer 13 or so i hadly ever chat because some poeple say stupid stuff and that people show be careful when there in the internet. for a lot of resons one is that some sutff pops up mthat you really don't want to see if your a girl. so be careful were you log on or talk to.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 4:32 PM EST
Points: 308
Torill says:
Maynard - HOW could you say the Radcliffe's should have handled it better, and not made them feel so small?????? Couldn't believe my eyes when I read that. The Radcliffes are the VICTIMS here, along with the girl and her mother. They have not given out the girl's name or identity, just posted a warning to Dan's fans so others will not be tricked in this way, and nothing from Alan Radcliffe's letter can be read as if they were in any way rude to the girl or her mother. But of course they could not let her see Dan. Come on people. Their first and foremost duty is to protect their son, who is still a minor, and they should in no way force him to have to deal with every strange teenager who shows up at their doorstep claiming to be a fan. What did they know of this girl? She was a complete stranger to them. I would seriously have doubted their judgement if they had let her into their house to see their son. You should also read Alan Radcliffe's second letter to the two fansides, where he asks people not to judge the girl and her mother, just be warned. From what I can judge from this, it seems the family handled this unfortunate situation the best way possible, and they do not deserve to be criticised.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 4:38 PM EST
Muggle
Points: 73
Efteling says:
I know many people have already said this but I agree with most that it is pretty stupid to just believe what people say on the internet. The girl, if she and her mother have the resources to show up in London al the way from Chile, could have called the proper agency to confirm it all. I fell for it once too and have been cured of it ever since. Want to know what I did? I sent someone 50 dollars to send to me two rare cd's. I didn't hear from that person afterwards and the email address didn't exist all of a sudden. You can say that I was very naive as well but I was cured after that.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 5:50 PM EST
Auror
Points: 2787
PunkyDunky says:
I think that girl was stupid because it was an e-mail. I mean, hello? There are tons of impersonators out there and if it was me, I wouldn't fly to England over that. I'd probably mail him a letter or something and definately forget all about it.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 7:06 PM EST
Head Boy
Points: 486
Maynard says:
Torill,
It would behoove you to read more carefully the newspiece as well as my previous two comments. Please note that the Radcliffe's did not take the woman and her daughter seriously. They should have notified the police. The cases of stalking of celebrities by the, shall I say, deluded, are well documented. Some go so far as to attempt to climb walls, dig through trash, and some have even attempted to kill the objects of their desire. Sadly some have been successful. If you don't believe me I will post links to this sort of behavior as I find it on the net, if you require it. The Radcliffe's need to be aware the nature of fan obsession. Sometime's what I read on this site gives me pause. In this thread alone there has been an undue amount of not just sympathy for but empathy with the girl. This idolization of celebrity, sometimes referred to by psychologists and sociologists as the "cult of personality" is a real disorder. It has brought about the death of several celebrities as well as an attempted assasination on the President of the United States in 1981. Don't get me wrong. I do feel sorry for the girl. I feel even sorrier for the Radcliffe's including Dan. But those of us who truly love all connected with this wonderful world of Harry Potter need to remember the real world where real people do unreal things for horrible reasons. As sad as it is to say it, it is most important for the fans and users of fansites to keep reality in mind. We MUST police our own. Dan is great. JKR is a genius. HOWEVER, they have lives of their own that they need to live ON THEIR OWN. This whole thing is sad, including your misunderstanding of it. The Radcliffe's must be "ever-vigilant." I hate that its that way but it is.
Posted Mar 7, 2004 at 11:02 PM EST
Points: 308
Torill says:
Maynard, my comment was based on this quote from your post:
"B: Dan's family could have handled it better and not have made them feel so small"
This does not sound as if you mean they should have handed them over to the police. It sounds as if you mean the Radcliffe's should have been nicer to them. I thought that was very unfair, as it sounds from Alan's two letters that they were more than nice enough. But if that is not what you meant, my reaction was build on a misunderstanding. Whether the Radcliffe's should have handed her over to the police, I think is not for us to say - they were the ones who met the girl and her mother, and evaluated the situatation from that. If they have taken steps to get the imposter identified and punished we don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had.
I think you build your last comment to me on a misunderstanding too, if you think I need to hear about or be given links to information about the stalker problem. I stated clearly in my post that the Radcliffe's were victims, and that they would have been wrong to let the girl and her mother meet their son as they knew nothing about them. As for the constant vigilance thing - well yes, buth I hope they don't get paranoid, the cases of actually murdered celebs from stalkers are, after all, rare.
Posted Mar 8, 2004 at 2:34 AM EST
Head Girl
Points: 454
crazy4hp says:
That is so stupid to travel all the way from Chile to London to meet an actor with an only proof of chatting to him on the net. That is pathetic, that really is. Poor girl and her mother, that big mouth liar who said he was dan is such a big jerk!! If i ask my parents, 'mom dad! can we go to london to meet Dan Radcliffe, he told me to do so via an e-mail!' my parents will tell me to go have some sleep and rest and i must say that that girl must be a HUGEEEEEEEEE HP fan to do so.
Posted Mar 8, 2004 at 12:47 PM EST
Witch
Points: 606
~*~Marauderette~*~ says:
I just can't believe that girl actually believed the emails. I mean was she really young or something? I don't know it just seems like one of those things that people warn you about but you never listen because you know it can't happen to you. Well looks like that just happened to someone..again. But that's just horrible that someone played a trick on her like that. I'm glad that the Radcliffe's handled it well though. I would be really scared if a teenage girl showed up on my doorstep wanting to go on a date with my actor son. I'm sorry that they even had to go through this.
Posted Mar 8, 2004 at 4:50 PM EST
Squib
Points: 198
SHEACKEY says:
Those people have no lives ( not to be rude or offensive or anything) but Dan is a REAL person he doesn't need immitators. It would be great if he did but thats his choice and I accept that :) ALLI :)
Posted Mar 9, 2004 at 11:55 AM EST
Points: 1248
CalimaCala says:
Ahh, does it feel good to be back online!! Jeez, I've missed so much news these past few days, when my computer was out for repairs....
Anyways, MissMaryPotter, your post was classic... but... er... what does it mean? :-D
Maynard, I whole-heartedly agree on point C. To respect and look up to someone as a role model is one thing... but to worship them so much that you'd traverse an ocean is just... freaky.
As many on here have said already, I wonder how this prankster could've gotten Dan's address and phone number. There are three possibilities:
1. It really was Dan and his parents are making this all up. (Highly unlikely, this is, but still possible.)
2. It was a friend of Dan's... perhaps Rupert or Emma or any of his friends back at home... who did this as a practical joke and is likely ripping his or her hair out right now because that cursed girl couldn't have waited a few more weeks until April Fool's Day.
3. It's some professional hacker / twisted wretch who is playing with this young girl's mind (unlikely because there are so many other dirty, twisted, illicit stuff the imposter could have tried instead of this)... and also is managing to find an address and phone number that hundreds of thousands of fans (not to mention reporters and what not) have sought to no avail. THAT is scary for both the young girl and for the Radcliffes. Imagine if it were an al Qaeda terrorist instead of a young Chilean... come to think of it, since a whole generation of Western kids highly regards the Harry Potter series and since Harry embodies many of the characteristics of the West... al Qaeda wouldn't be at all averse to attacking this symbol as a last resort, if they were so desperate to attack something or someone. I realize this is quite a stretch, but... it scratches the surface of how scary this situation really must have been for the Radcliffes.
Finally, kudos to Dan for not contacting fans via email. And I hope that no other celebrity uses email to contact fans, either, for the sake of avoiding this type of brouhaha at the Radcliffe's house.
Hmmm... a friend of mine once found an email address belonging to a celebrity (he had very convincing evidence for it that I found hard to refute... and a Harry Potter related celebrity it was, though I won't say who) and he emailed that person an indirect letter (so as to keep himself safe in case he was wrong). The person never responded, which either means it really was the celebrity he thought it was or it was someone normal whom he made really scared. :-D But the point is, whoever got that email did the responsible thing by not replying. I hope all celebrities do the same....
Posted Mar 9, 2004 at 11:19 PM EST
Prefect
Points: 308
davie7117 says:
Well I think that it is very horrible that someone would pretend and trick so girl into believing that was Dan.. It is sad..
Posted Mar 10, 2004 at 11:14 AM EST
Points: 308
Torill says:
Al Quaida?? Now that really would be taking this into paranoid country...
And Dan's adress is not that secret. Reporters know it, they have just respected a minor and not put it in papers or anything - which they really very seldom do anyway about anybody's adress for that matter. Dan said that just 2o minutes or so after he was announced as the boy who would play Harry Potter, reporters were outside his house. I guess the reason why we have not read about that anywhere is because no reporter has ever been invited in or had any qustios answered or pictures taken so nothing has come out of it for them. And Marcia Gresham, Dan's mother, described in one of the British newspapers - the Guardian I think it was - some time ago how fans constantly come marching up to their front door and want to talk to Dan and deliver presents to him. So obviously his adress can't be that impossible to find. (But she stated quite clearly that she doesn't even open the door for fans like that, and just tells them to place the present in the mail box. So don't get you hopes up girls...)
Posted Mar 11, 2004 at 7:56 AM EST
Order of Merlin, 4th Class
Points: 1369
luv4permboy says:
But why would her mother go? I mean, the mom should be at least smart enough not to let her go and go with her. Honestly the mother has to have some screws loose.
Posted Mar 13, 2004 at 11:51 PM EST
Death Eater
Points: 6201
Voldemort's Heir says:
Well I'm glad that they put out a statement to tell the fans that Dan isn't talking to anyone. Now if Tom would do the same thing it might help some too.
Posted Mar 14, 2004 at 9:43 PM EST
Witch
Points: 841
evangalista says:
I can't believe someone would be tricked like that, and it said her mother was with her. I don't get it. I guess I could see a girl maybe being tricked into believing she was actually talking with Daniel, but for her mother to believe that and take her all the way from Chile to see him? That's just outrageous!!! She's a grown woman, she should know better.
Posted Mar 15, 2004 at 3:03 PM EST
Muggle
Points: 6
sweetevangeline says:
It's tough not to feel bad for all involved parties in this case... On one hand, there's the poor girl and her mother and on the other, there's the Radcliffes, who are just trying to lead a normal life. The web is such a strange place, I hope everyone is careful and am often disappointed...
Posted Mar 16, 2004 at 1:20 AM EST
Auror
Points: 2303
padfoot5312 says:
Things that people do to other people. I glad that he stated that he doesn't communicates with his fans in emails.
Posted Mar 21, 2004 at 6:00 PM EST
Witch
Points: 681
SiriusLove says:
Incredible...this story just ran on FoxNews tonight. It took them 18 days. HPANA always so far ahead of everyone else!
Posted Mar 22, 2004 at 8:53 PM EST
Squib
Points: 150
BeckyMalfoy says:
tht's soooo sad. I would have traveled that far to meet a harry potter actor. Imagine how she felt, she was clearly excited about meeting daniel radcliffe. its not her fault that someone pretended to be him
Posted Mar 31, 2004 at 5:08 PM EST
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