A profile claiming to be Mortimer, 65, has appeared on the dating app Tinder, using the comedian’s photos and even some personal details.
Mortimer has been married to wife Lisa Matthews since 2015, and the pair have been together for over 20 years.
The scammer used pictures of Mortimer but changed his name to Kyle and put his age as 50, perhaps in an attempt to make it appear that Mortimer was trying to keep a low profile despite his fame.
The profile was reportedly deleted by the platform, but there is no telling how many of the 2.4million UK users of the app were fooled by the fake account.
The Sun exclusively revealed the scam, showing that the profile described the comedian as a ‘big time texter’ looking for a long-term partner, and that Mortimer works out ‘every day’ and is interested in yoga, meditation, theatre, and café-hopping. It also stated that Mortimer has a pet fish.
The profile featured several images, including one of the star eating fish and chips and another of him watching football with a friend.
When contacted by The Sun, a spokesperson for Tinder reportedly said: ‘Catfishing is a violation of our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, and users who are discovered catfishing are removed from our platform.
‘If someone believes they are being impersonated on Tinder, they should contact our support team with relevant details here, which is available to anyone regardless of whether they use Tinder. From there, our team will promptly search for and remove any matching profile.
‘We encourage our users to look for the “blue tick,” which indicates that the user’s age and likeness has been verified through our Photo and ID Verification programmes. Additionally, all users can request that their match photo verifies prior to messaging.’
The news comes amid ongoing health struggles for the comedian, who was in his 20s and battling additional heart problems over the years.
He also had a bout of shingles in 2023 that left him weak and unwell.
Mortimer discussed his health battles with duringan episode of their show Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing.
He said: ‘It’s been a very, very, very unhealthy year for me Paul with my shingles… And you know what – it was worse than my heart period.
‘The muscles I’ve lost, I’ve lost… But other ones can compensate for it, you know what I mean?’
He added: ‘I can make the other muscles stronger but I have a terrible feeling I’m never going to be able to run again and you know that I used to like to run Paul.’