Pregnancy hoax pair’s awkward apology

“ARE you looking for a man?” Yep, just when you thought this story couldn’t get more cringe-worthy, the woman at the centre of it went on Sunrise.

JUST when you thought it couldn’t get any more cringe-worthy.

The French tourist behind yesterday’s one-night stand pregnancy hoax has appeared on morning television alongside the man who put her up to the poor-taste marketing stunt.

‘Natalie Amyot’, real name Alizee Michel, and marketing man Andy Sellar went on Sunrise to apologise for the hoax, in which Ms Michel posed as a French tourist looking for help to find the a man she’d met — and fell pregnant to — on a night out in Mooloolaba, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

“I would like to say that I made this video to help my friend and I didn’t expect it to go this viral,” Ms Michel said when asked to explain herself by hosts Sam Armytage and David Koch.

“I’m sorry to the people who really wanted to help.”

Alizee Michel and Andy Sellar have apologised for the stunt ... sort of.

In the video, which went global yesterday, Ms Michel, using a fake name, claimed to have returned to France after her holiday tryst but lost her phone — and the father of her unborn baby’s contact details.

In a follow up video posted late yesterday, she appeared alongside social media marketer Mr Sellar outside a Mooloolaba real estate agency, proclaiming “I found him!”.

Mr Sellar, who was reportedly paid $900 by the real estate agent’s principal for the hoax, said the idea had simply been to promote Mooloolaba but got out of hand.

“I didn't think what happened would happen and im sorry for that,” he said this morning.

“I spoke to the local business owners yesterday and they were happy. It was the top three trending word on the entire internet, Mooloolaba.”

“So how does your boyfriend feel about this?” Armytage demanded to know as the TV exchange got increasingly awkward.

Ms Michel denied having one.

“I'm 23, I’m studying management and I’m single,” she said, before Kochie asked her, “Are you looking for a man?”

“Ummm, not exactly ...” she replied.

Ms Michel and Mr Sellar have been slammed for the stunt, which has been described as “disgraceful”.

But local businessman Nigel Lucas, who reportedly hired Mr Sellar, was less apologetic when faced with the public backlash yesterday.

“Every show, even Fox News is running with it,” he toldThe Sunshine Coast Daily, claiming even US talk show queen Ellen DeGeneres had been in touch.

Andy Sellar, right, and local businessman Nigel Lucas, who paid for the stunt, explain themselves at a press conference yesterday. Pic Megan Slade.

This comes as it has been found that the bogus video bares striking similarities to a six-year-old Danish clip.

Some of you might recall this 2009 video, which depicts a young, blonde Danish woman named ‘Karen’ desperately seeking her child’s father.

She recalls how she became pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with a tourist whose name or nationality she does not remember.

The entire thing turned out to be a sham orchestrated by Denmark’s national tourism organisation, who had hired an actress to play the role of the single mother.

The ad was slammed worldwide by duped viewers and was pulled from YouTube shortly after.

Six years on, we have fallen for what is essentially the same hoax.