Kira Cousins, a 23-year-old former supermarket worker from Airdrie, Scotland, has broken her silence on why she deceived her then boyfriend and family into believing she was pregnant and then passed off a plastic doll as her newborn daughter, Bonnie-Leigh Joyce.
Why she did it
In her first interview, Cousins acknowledged what she did was wrong but claimed she was unable to tell ex-boyfriend Jamie Gardner she was no longer pregnant after suffering a miscarriage. She told the Sunday Mail: "I couldn't tell him. I did lose a child. I'd tried to tell him when I first lost the child. I still have messages on my phone which said, 'Jamie, we need to sit down,' but I couldn't speak to him about anything. I can hold my hands up and say, 'No, I shouldn't have used a doll', but at the same time, nobody knows what our relationship was like."
Jamie Gardner's account
Jamie Gardner said he genuinely believed the doll was real. He stated: "If I had ever known that was really a doll, I'd have run off sooner. I've not got a clue what really happened to be honest." Cousins wore an artificial baby bump for months, shared baby scan images, and threw a lavish gender reveal party. She posted pictures of baby clothes and gifts, including a £1,000 pram and car seat, and what is believed to be AI-generated footage showing the "baby" kicking. She wrote about hospital appointments and claimed antenatal tests detected a heart defect.
How the deception unfolded
Cousins said she allowed Gardner to believe she was still pregnant because she was frightened of telling him the truth. She said: "I think there was a bit of fear and shock as well. I'd gone through that myself. How do you tell someone that you've already gone through all that by yourself?" Gardner said he has no recollection of her ever attempting to tell him about a miscarriage. Cousins claimed she had given birth to a baby weighing 5lb 4oz and kept the ruse by keeping her own unsuspecting family away from the doll. She said: "All of my family had been asking, 'What is going on?'. Is she depressed?' because I wouldn't let anyone near that doll, only me and Jamie."
Discovery of the truth
Just days before the deception was uncovered, younger relatives grew suspicious when they believed the "baby" in a car journey was a doll. It is understood Cousins's mother eventually discovered the lifelike doll concealed in her bedroom in October. Cousins is said to have claimed that Bonnie-Leigh died. She said: "He took that doll, without me, to his mum and dad's house, which is about a 20-minute drive. Everyone in that house saw it and none of them twigged. It all came out days after we had picked Jamie's relatives up from a birthday party. The doll had been in the back of the car. I had been thinking, 'How do I get out of this now?' When the boys got out of the car, they said to their mum, 'That was a doll.' No-one said to Jamie at that point."
Aftermath
Cousins claimed she ultimately confessed to Gardner, who replied, "You're a psycho," and walked out. Gardner disputes that she told him directly. Cousins said she and Gardner have spoken on the phone since the scandal broke, but she cannot understand their relationship. She also said she pulled out of a planned TV documentary over editing concerns. Gardner, who refused to take part, said: "I want to get as far away from her as possible. I just want to move on with my life."
