Kira Cousins, from Airdrie in Scotland, fooled her her loved-ones into believing a plastic doll was her newborn baby and spent months wearing a fake bump before pretending to give birth alone
15:12, 27 Oct 2025
Kira Cousins shared her fake baby’s gender reveal on social media(Image: UGC)
The woman at the centre of the fake baby scandal has denied launching a fundraiser which appears to have been set up to fund her new life, claiming she was left with ‘no food, no money, no clothes’.
Kira Cousins from Airdrie in Scotland fooled her her loved-ones into believing a plastic doll was her newborn baby and spent months wearing a fake bump before she pretended to give birth alone. The 22-year-old was eventually rumbled after family members discovered her tiny daughter, named Bonnie-Leigh Joyce, was in fact a realistic Reborn doll, when Kira’s mum found it in her bedroom.
Now a GoFundMe page which appears to have been launched by Kira at the weekend is pleading for cash, claiming she has been left with, “No one. No home. No food.” The page reads: “My name is Kira and I made the biggest mistake of my life. Yes, I should have thought about the consequences, but I am just a girl who wanted to feel loved.”
Kira Cousins fooled her friends and family(Image: neavemcrobert/Tiktok)READ MORE: Worrying hidden signs in ‘fake mum’s’ shock apology after fooling family with baby DOLLREAD MORE: Kira Cousins faked a baby birth before, Facebook friend claims
Begging for donations, the statement continues: “Because of this mistake, I have no home no food, no money, no clothes. Even if it’s £5 for a meal, I would really appreciate it. I have no other options. My life is hell.”
A link to the fundraiser was shared by Kira’s Instagram page on Saturday in a story but when approached by the Daily Record, the fake mum denied she had access to the account and said she had not started the GoFundMe page. She also said she had reported the page to police.
GoFundMe confirmed they are currently monitoring the campaign, which has so far raised just £20. A friend of Kira’s family, who asked not to be named and previously described Kira as a “serial liar”, told reporters that she “laughed” when she heard that Kira had started a GoFundMe.
She used a reborn doll to dupe everyone
“Hearing that she has started a GoFundMe just makes me laugh. It doesn’t surprise me one bit,” the friend said. She added that a production company had got in touch with her about shooting a documentary on Kira. Others connected with the situation have also reportedly been approached.
Kira posted images of baby scans and videos of her lavish gender reveal party in the leadup to the “birth” on October 10 when she claimed to have given birth to her “daughter”, weighing 5lbs 4oz. In the weeks before she announced the birth Kira uploaded what is believed to be AI-generated footage of the “baby” kicking in her tummy and a series of pictures of newborn clothes and items loved ones bought, including a £1,000 pram and a car seat.
She also described hospital visits even claiming that ante-natal tests had picked up a heart defect in her baby. However after she was discovered the baby’s dad outed Kira as a “serial liar”.
The Reborn doll she used in her elaborate and shocking scam was designed to look like a real-life baby and they retail for between £30 to £2,000. Screenshots of messages reportedly sent by Kira to the man who she claimed was Bonnie-Leigh’s dad, show her telling him their baby had died.
Kira Cousins refused to comment when first first contacted by our sister paper the Daily Record last week but later she shared a post saying: “I wasn’t pregnant. There was no baby. I made it up and kept it going way too far. I faked scans, messages, a whole birth story, and acted like a doll was a real baby.
“I know how bad it is, I f****d up. I just didn’t know how to stop once I started. I don’t have a proper excuse. I wasn’t in a good headspace, but that doesn’t make what I did okay. I know this is gonna stick with me for a long time and that I’ve probably lost friends I’ll never get back.
“I’m trying to figure myself out and get help because this version of me isn’t someone I want to be. I know I’ve ruined a lot of trust and that “sorry” won’t fix everything but it’s all I can say right now.”
Kira went on to apologise to all of her loved-ones who she lied to. She continued: “I’m so sorry. You were there for me through it all. You cried happy tears, picked me up, brought me places, believed everything I said.
“You didn’t deserve to be lied to like that. None of you did. Everyone who came to the gender reveal, all the people who gave me gifts or support – I f****d up and I hurt a lot of people.
“And to everyone I made look bad along the way – the dad and his family especially – I’m sorry. I made you out to be horrible people when really, I was the one in the wrong. Completely.”
Kira also defended people who were led to believe the doll was real. She added: “In everyone else’s defence, the doll could move. You could change the facial features, arms and legs. You could feed the doll making it ‘pee or poo’. So when no one is close to the doll, it does look real. No one was looking at my ‘baby’ expecting it to be a doll.”
The Mirror previously reported that pal Neave McRobert noted that those closest to Kira first became suspicious after no one had heard the “baby” cry in a video statement filmed on October 16. She also told of how Kira refused to let anyone touch her as she claimed Bonnie-Leigh had recently visited Wishaw General Hospital for checks due to ill-health.
Neave said: “I noticed Kira had deleted every picture and video of Bonnie-Leigh from our chats. I asked her why and she ignored me. I then asked the baby’s dad ‘Is this a doll?’ and he said, ‘Yes, it’s a doll.’ She even went to the extreme of texting him saying, “Bonnie-Leigh died”.
“I can’t imagine how he must feel right now and everyone else who has been lied to for months and months. Everybody believed her. She had a gender reveal, she posted scan photos and even said the baby had a hole in its heart. Then she texted me saying the baby was born. We were all so happy.”
Screenshots of Neave’s conversations with Kira about Bonnie-Leigh were shared online, alongside others showing the doll in a series of now-deleted posts from the “new mum”. Neave also spoke about how she met “baby” Bonnie-Leigh when she took her former friend and the doll to a supermarket.
She continued: “I feel worse because I’m one of the few people to meet this ‘baby’. I feel totally used and drained. Everyone got conned by her.”
