Sherri Papini is a bad wife, an abusive mom and a drain on society. In short, she’s a very troubled woman. That’s what Lifetime movie Hoax: The Kidnapping of Sherri Papini (2023), Hulu documentary series Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini (2024), Oxygen documentary Sherri Papini: Lies, Lies and More Lies (2022) and pretty much all of the news media that covered her 2016 disappearance and reemergence (and her 2022 arrest, subsequent trial and prison sentence) will tell you.

The story goes like this: Papini, a wife and mother of two, faked her own kidnapping, stayed at an ex-boyfriend’s house for 22 days and made him beat her up and brand her with an iron. She “escaped” and made her way home on Thanksgiving morning. The motive was said to be a mix of narcissism and a cry for attention from her husband, Keith Papini. But in a new docuseries, Sherri Papini has a very different story to share — and she shares it firsthand with filmmaker Nicole Rittenmeyer.

Rittenmeyer, the director of Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax (2023), has a pretty good B.S. detector. For four episodes over the past two nights, Rittenmeyer put the screws to Papini. For about 20 minutes on the Friday before Investigation Discovery’s Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie premiered, we put the screws to Rittenmeyer. Read our Q&A, below.

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Do you believe Sherri?

It’s a good question, but I’m going to punt because I’m not that kind of filmmaker. I’m not an advocacy or activist filmmaker. I really feel like my job is to present everything I have, and leave that to the viewers to conclude. I will say this though, in the very beginning, I was, frankly, a little concerned. I was like, “Should I even take this show?” Two things were possible: 1) It would be so abundantly clear that she was such a easy, compulsive, superficial liar that you could see right through. Who wants to make a show about that? There’s no challenge there. Or 2) She would come on and mea culpa all over the place: “I was really going through it, and I was emotionally this,” or, “I blame it on drugs.” Or, you know, who the hell knows? That also wouldn’t have been very interesting.

Thankfully, it ended up being a third one: There was something meaty to plumb and parse and serve up to viewers so they could come to their own conclusions.

The short version of Sherri’s new story is that her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes, kidnapped her and held her against her will. You didn’t get to speak with him. Your P.I. tried, but what is your take on James?

It never made any sense to me that Sherri would ask him to brand her, without question or asking why — or even asking what the word meant — he’s gonna be like, “Yeah, sure, because I’m a friend.” No, that just doesn’t pass any kind of smell test.

Sherri’s now ex-husband Keith Papini has had his say — a lot. He did not participate in your project. What is your opinion of Keith?

The thing about this story is everybody, not just Sherri, has an agenda. That wasn’t clear to me (from prior films). In fairness to my filmmaking colleagues who came before me — I know the people who made two-thirds of those films, I’ve worked with them before — they didn’t have access to the full story. They worked with what they had. And you know, when Keith is your primary source of information and he has an agenda, you’re gonna end up perpetuating that agenda, right?

Sherri wasn’t the one that was courting the media, despite the fact that everyone assumes she’s a narcissist, which he’s not been diagnosed with. Keith was one courting the media, and this is after her return, right? So it wasn’t just about, “I gotta find my wife.” The narrative that exists about him as also a victim of Sherri’s — poor long-suffering Keith — serves him very well. He has made clear that he is not particularly interested in us having our show out there, because it does challenge that narrative, and I think it pokes some pretty good holes in it. My personal opinion of Keith probably doesn’t matter, but I think we do present enough to make you question the existing conventional wisdom about who he is and why he did what he did.

Sherri can’t bring criminal charges against James without law enforcement, and they do not believe her story. Why hasn’t she filed a civil suit against James?

She is considering filing a civil suit, and for sure she was absolutely willing to bring criminal charges. The problem is — and I verified this with our FBI experts, and with DOJ — she’s a horrible witness, of course, because she has a conviction for lying. She really screwed herself. In a lot of ways, this show is so much about the object lesson of what happens when you lie. Because she really was caught in it. Sherri Papini: Caught in a Lie is a quite appropriate title.

If all Sherri wants is her kids back, why did she wait to tell her story in a docuseries that’s just coming out now? Her divorce from Keith was finalized two years ago…

Remember, she has a family lawyer and a criminal defense attorney… she’s been wanting to scream this from the rooftops. She hasn’t seen [this docuseries]. She’s going to see it when everybody else does. I was literally just texting with her, and there is a palpable sense of relief from her of just being able to get it out. I think she feels like she got a fair shot.

It’s basic human nature to be like, “Oh, you’re a liar, you’re not gonna fool me.” I spent an inordinate amount of time and effort and energy and exhausted myself in the beginning trying to catch her. “I’m gonna get you here. I’m gonna get you there.” And I caught her way less than I anticipated that I would.

I veered away from your question. Let me answer that because I think it’s important. The reason why she hasn’t shouted it from the rooftops is because the sense was that would complicate her ability to get her kids. Because don’t forget, they didn’t take away her kids because of all of this. Keith got an order for custody because she was going into prison, and that was supposed to change when the terms change. Her release from prison is the change of the terms. But he’s not giving the kids back. So, that’s what she’s fighting in custody for right now. And actually, that trial was supposed to be resolved some time ago, but there keep being delays; the courthouse flooded. She’s struggling to get her kids back in all the ways she’s been advised.

It’s really hard to sit on it. She had a whole statement written for court and she wanted to tell her real story. Her criminal defense attorney is a smart guy, and he was like, “Do not say that thing, because that is not going to resonate with this judge.”

At the very end of the finale, Sherri asks you if you believe the docuseries will help her or harm her. We do not get to hear your answer. What was your answer, and why did you close the film on this particular moment?

So many people have asked me that question. I’m like, “Damn, I wonder if I should have put it in the film?” I’ll answer the second question first. I chose to put it in the film that way because I wanted to leave the audience with that question: “Do you think this film helped her or hurt her?” For that reason, my answer didn’t seem to matter.

The way I answered it was, “My hope for this film is that it’s going to make you a three-dimensional flesh-and-blood character, which you have not been. You’ve been tarred and feathered, strung up in the town square, all of those things. Demonized, vilified, all the shit we do to women who we think have done wrong, and you’ve never had your side out there. I think the mockery will probably tone down a bit once people realize it’s so easy to dehumanize people when you don’t see them as people.”

I hope, if nothing else, this makes her more of a person and not an object. A person who had her motivations and is deeply flawed, no doubt. And that’s what I told her.

Eminem has a line about Sherri in “Houdini.” It’s not brought up in the film, but did you discuss that with her?
What you thought you saw ain’t what you saw (nah)
‘Cause you’re never gon’ see me
Caught sleepin’ and see the kidnappin’ never did happen (no)
Like Sherri Papini, Harry Houdini
I vanish into the thin air as I’m leaving like

If you are Sherri Papini and you follow at all what has been said about you, [the “Houdini” line] is by far the least offensive, egregious, insulting thing. I mean, it’s almost positive.

I did ask her about it. We wanted to put it in the show. But licensing Eminem [is expensive]. She had a friend of hers explain it to her, like, “You have reached peak pop culture.” I don’t think she’s displeased about it, I’ll put it that way.

You pushed Sherri very far at times, including during reenactments of the alleged kidnapping, which she agreed to do. Those clearly triggered her — was it hard for you to balance the documentarian job with humanity?

Absolutely. You saw the conversation we had with her doctor about it. I would say that is probably as close as I’ve skirted to the ethical line. It didn’t feel great. I don’t even know if it’s fully captured in the video, but she was trembling so hard you could see it from 20 feet away. [Doctors] told me you cannot fake that kind of autonomic nervous response to like. She couldn’t just will it into existence. And honestly, in full truth, I did pull the plug. I had my producer sitting with me. My DPs were there, and we were all just looking at each other like, “I can’t.” It felt like kicking a puppy.

I knew that something was going to happen. What I frankly thought is she would break the lie, that she would reveal she remembered something. So it was totally not anticipating that response. It and the polygraph both sort of became these catalysts for breakthroughs when we did interviews afterwards. It broke some stuff down. I think it allowed us to get further faster with the sort of psychological deconstruction of why she may have done what she did, so I wouldn’t take it back. I’m happy I did it. But yeah, it didn’t feel great.

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Investigation Discovery’s Sherri Papini: Caught in the Lie is now streaming on Max.