Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this article: Sherri Papini served 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to fabricating her 2016 kidnapping. The California woman has been rebuilding her life and her relationships with her children. In a 2025 docuseries, she walked back statements of guilt and said her abduction really did happen. Sherri Papini admitted her alleged kidnapping was a hoax in 2022. But after serving time in prison, she claimed the real story is much more complex. The 2023 movie Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini streams on Netflix starting Friday, May 15, and gives a fictionalized account of the case with Jaime King portraying the Redding, California, mother. Papini went missing in 2016 and reappeared three weeks later, falsely telling authorities she had been abducted and tortured. The disappearance of Papini, now 43, made national headlines and set off an FBI-assisted search for her alleged kidnappers.…
