Episode 6: One Direction

·29 min·2 clips

Jean told Natalie Garrett at the Tower of London: 'all you need to know is the sicker Meg is, the more attention we get, the more money we make.'

1. Believe in Magic Episode 6 investigates how the band One Direction became a likely catalyst for the Believe in Magic charity, tracing the connection between Megan's fan obsession and the escalation of illness claims. 2. Jamie Bartlett presents the episode; key witnesses include Megan's friend Natalie Garrett, sister Kate, and Dr. Mark Feldman and Dr. Danya Glazer as expert voices. 3. The episode's central argument is that illness was Megan and Jean's mechanism for accessing celebrity — the more serious the illness, the closer the access. 4. One Direction auditioned for The X Factor in summer 2010; though they placed third, within months they were a global phenomenon, accessible via Twitter in ways that earlier celebrities had not been. 5. Megan's friend Natalie Garrett recalls Megan being 'absolutely obsessed with One Direction, completely in love with Harry Styles' — Megan even changed her Twitter username to 'Meg Styles.' 6. In March 2011, Megan was invited backstage at the O2 Arena to meet One Direction along with other very unwell children; in April 2011, Jean tweeted for the first time that Megan had a brain tumour. 7. Jean tweeted One Direction 539 times in the first 10 months after starting her Twitter account, using spam-workaround techniques — moving a full stop or adding a kiss to bypass automated duplicate-message filters. 8. Kate says she is '99% sure' the charity was set up specifically to attract One Direction's attention, citing the order of events and what she heard Megan and Jean saying. 9. On 6 August 2011, Harry Styles tweeted 'everyone should follow and support Believe in Magic — it's a great cause,' generating 700 new followers in 15 minutes; within months, One Direction wore Believe in Magic wristbands on stage in 40 countries. 10. Harry Styles' mother climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for the charity, and the band donated merchandise that Megan and Jean raffled or sold on eBay. 11. Dr. Mark Feldman of the University of Alabama coined the term 'Munchausen by Internet' around the year 2000, describing cases where illness deception occurs entirely or partly online, often targeting celebrity fan communities. 12. The first case Feldman heard about involved a member of a Bruce Springsteen fan group misrepresenting their health status — illustrating how illness can allow someone to 'emerge out of the pack' of celebrity admirers. 13. Jamie Bartlett presents his own 'working theory': that Megan genuinely had idiopathic intracranial hypertension and an enlarged pituitary gland, but that Jean took that grain of medical truth and turned it into a life-threatening brain tumour narrative to attract attention. 14. Natalie Garrett confronted Megan at the 2013 Believe in Magic Christmas party at the Tower of London, asking why she claimed to be critically ill while 'running around as normal'; Jean walked in and said: 'all you need to know is the sicker Meg is, the more attention we get, the more money we make.' 15. That was the last time Natalie spoke to Jean; she left immediately, feeling 'helpless' and 'powerless,' and her ex-husband advised her to 'just walk away.' 16. The Charity Commission concluded its investigation into Believe in Magic in 2020, finding accounts filed late or not at all, over £100,000 unaccounted for, and charity money transferred into Jean's personal bank account. 17. Dr. Danya Glazer, a retired consultant child psychiatrist formerly at Great Ormond Street who helped write UK guidelines on fabricated and induced illness, says the case 'certainly has elements which suggest that it could be FII.' 18. Dr. Glazer mentions a 'Kingston Review' — a term Jamie and Ruth have not heard before — and a Safeguarding Adults Review into Megan's case that the Royal Borough of Kingston confirms is not yet completed, expected in April 2022. 19. The episode ends with Jamie and Ruth realising they are in the middle of an active official investigation: 'we're not the only ones trying to get to the bottom of this.' 20. Best suited for listeners following the series who want to understand the One Direction dimension and the broader systemic and celebrity-culture context; less suited for anyone starting at this episode.

As heard by us

A careful look at how fandom, illness, and a charity myth became one story.

One Direction is the doorway into a wider story about celebrity obsession, online belonging, and how a partly true detail can be stretched into something much larger.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

One Direction fandom meets medical doubt, and the whole story starts to wobble in the background.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Believe in Magic