One woman is about to get a very rude awakening about the state of her relationship thanks to Twitter. A cheating boyfriend was overheard bragging about his infidelity on a train last week and has since become the subject of a viral tweet. It's the stuff nightmares are made of.
Emily Shepherd, 23, a fellow passenger and Bournemouth University student, tweeted about "Cheating Ben", as he's become known, and he's now facing jury by Twitter, with the tweet having garnered more than 26,000 retweets and nearly 67,000 likes at the time of writing.
If anyone has a boyfriend called Ben on the Bournemouth - Manchester train right now, he’s just told his friends he’s cheating on you. Dump his ass x
— Emily (@emilyshepss) December 1, 2017
"If anyone has a boyfriend called Ben on the Bournemouth - Manchester train right now, he's just told his friends he's cheating on you. Dump his ass x," she wrote in the tweet, which clearly hit a nerve.
Shepherd said the response had been "crazy". "It was a fairly empty carriage and there was a group of boys talking and drinking and swearing as lads do, and they were going through girls' Facebook profiles," she told the BBC. It was then that Ben admitted to cheating on his girlfriend.
"It's been crazy – I've received so many comments from people supporting me and you get the usual trolls trying to bring you down," she continued. "I've had a few people sending me pictures saying 'does he look like this?', 'what does he look like?' but there's no sign yet."
Randomly, Dragon's Den's Deborah Meaden retweeted the message, urging Cheating Ben to "please make yourself known before all the non cheating Bens find out where you live."
Dear cheating Ben... are you a Benjamin or a Benedict. We have people anxious to know? https://t.co/rVGIgEnHzC
— Deborah Meaden (@DeborahMeaden) December 2, 2017
Comedian Katherine Ryan also got involved.
Dump them all to be safe 🔥
— Katherine Ryan (@Kathbum) December 3, 2017
Sadly, it looks like Cheating Ben is still on the loose. Shepherd tweeted yesterday to say she'd "had several messages" but none yet that had confirmed his identity. She also referred to the abuse she'd suffered for raising the alarm: "Thanks to everyone calling me a grass and a snake, you’re all great."
For everyone asking: Ben is yet to be found, I’ve had several messages but nothing yet. I’m now on the Manchester - Bournemouth train and no sign yet... thanks to everyone calling me a grass and a snake, you’re all great X
— Emily (@emilyshepss) December 3, 2017
Shepherd's original tweet even inspired a segment on this morning's Loose Women, with some viewers suggesting that the show had revealed her identity on TV and implied that she'd grassed up the cheat for attention.
@loosewomen for a tweet that was never intended to go viral as Emily has never had any level of notoriety I think it's completely irresponsible of you to treat her like some kind of snitch and expose her to even more abuse. (1)
— Bethan (@BethanMHarper) December 4, 2017
@loosewomen exposing her full identity was a poorly thought out move and if more research had been done maybe the team would have realised how much abuse the poor girl is getting and would have attempted to shield her from more threats (2)
— Bethan (@BethanMHarper) December 4, 2017
@loosewomen perhaps the segment should have been about how powerful social media can be and how hurtful people can be when shielded by a computer, instead of supporting an alleged cheat in a round about way and bringing more anxiety to Emily. (3)
— Bethan (@BethanMHarper) December 4, 2017
"Perhaps the segment should have been about how powerful social media can be and how hurtful people can be when shielded by a computer, instead of supporting an alleged cheat in a round about way and bringing more anxiety to Emily," tweeted Bethan Harper. Too right. Let's hope Ben has handed himself in by now.
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