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Spanish Actress Anna Allen Photoshops Her Way Into the Oscars

Categories: Western Europe, Spain, Citizen Media, Film, Humor
Anna Allen

Anna Allen. Image from Wikimedia Commons [1], with license (Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International).

Tears, laughter, speeches, surprises and disappointments weren't the only things to come out of the most recent Academy Awards. This year's Oscars also served to expose a few lies.

Spanish actress Anna Allen [2], well known for her role in the popular Spanish TV series “Cuéntame cómo pasó [3]” (Tell Me How It Happened), posted on her now deactivated social media accounts that she had been invited to the 87th annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards, held on Sunday, February 22, 2015.

The newspaper El Mundo [4] published what the actress said about her alleged experience: “I've been able to dream with the magic of movies. I was surprised by the number of individuals that work at the Oscars. There are hundreds and hundreds of production assistants, press crew… It's all so huge and overwhelming…”

A few days later, however, the same paper revealed that her invitation had been a hoax and that the pictures Allen had posted on social networks supposedly showing her at the ceremony were clumsy Photoshop jobs. Almost immediately, media outlets began to talk about the issue. One was Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, which summed up the events [5]:

Ella fingía vivir el sueño americano, explicando que iba a los Oscars, y resulta que la única invitación que había recibido era para actualizar el programa Photoshop que utilizaba para hacer creíble su farsa.
[…]
La fotografía que colgó, como descubrió El mundo, era una farsa. No podía ser una instantánea tomada en la alfombra roja de Los Angeles sino producto del Photoshop. Y la red de mentiras de esta actriz nacida en Girona (supuestamente) en 1982 comenzó a destaparse.

She pretended she was living the American dream, explaining she was going to the Oscars, and it turns up that the only invitation she'd gotten was to update the Photoshop program she used to make her hoax believable.
[…]
The photograph she uploaded, as El Mundo revealed, was a fake. It couldn't be a snapshot taken at the red carpet in Los Angeles but the product of Photoshop. And the network of lies spread by this actress, born in Girona (allegedly) in 1982 started to be uncovered.

In another post, La Vanguardia formulated an explanation [6] of what made Allen tell these lies:

Si ella y su representante eran conscientes que mentían con tal de obtener notoriedad y mejorar el perfil profesional, sólo era un negocio. Pero también podría tratarse del trastorno Folie a deux, conocido como el trastorno psicótico compartido: una persona tiene una creencia delirante y una segunda la comparte.
[…]
Claro que Allen, a primera vista, cumple el trastorno narcisista de personalidad cuyos primeros síntomas son un grandioso sentido de autoimportancia, y estar preocupada por unas fantasías de éxito ilimitado.

If she and her manager were aware that they were lying just to get fame and enhance her professional profile, it's just business. But this could also be the Folie a deux disorder, known as the shared psychotic disorder: one individual has the delirious belief and that second one shares it.
[…]
Of course Allen, at first sight, fits the narcissistic disorder, where the first symptoms are a huge sense of self-importance and being caught up in some fantasies of unlimited success.

Anna Allen hasn't faced the public since the her lies were disclosed. In fact, her whereabouts are unknown, and she has deactivated her online accounts with no explanations.

Mockery and jokes on Twitter have been pervasive:

Meet Anna Allen and her life in Hollywood.

Actress Anna Allen will be have the leading role in 50 Shades Darker!

Anna Allen appeared with lies at the Oscars.

The only thing that is clear to me is that Anna Allen is a great actress.

Anna Allen, daughter of Woody Allen, oh, no! She does not have a single picture with him!

Time will tell if Anna Allen will offer some kind of explanation, or if everything will remain unexplained.