Paige Spiranac says she endured a “really scary” moment at the recent American Century Championship, claiming a male fan threatened her after accusing her of scamming him out of $10,000.
During the latest episode of her “Playing A Round” podcast, Spiranac recalled how an “unhinged” fan approached her as she warmed up for the final round of the event, which took place earlier this month at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Nevada.
“There was some guy… and he comes up and asks me for a picture, it’s fine at first. And then, he goes into how I scammed him out of $10,000 and he started threatening me. It was a really really scary situation,” said Spiranac, who later added how she had her head on a swivel at the event and that it affected her play down the stretch.
“As it turns out, this man was scammed by a fake profile that someone created and it had a fake number, he was unhinged. It was a very scary situation, and luckily I had my team there, so I called my agent over and he was trying to handle it.”
Although security spoke to the man and issued a warning not to approach or talk to Spiranac, the 29-year-old influencer said that he showed up on hole two and that her agent handled the situation. Spiranac believes the individual “should’ve been removed from the property” in Lake Tahoe, and was upset when that didn’t happen.
As Spiranac also detailed, this isn’t the first time she has dealt with an uneasy situation involving “angry” and “hostile” male fans.
“I’ve been dealing with these security issues for a while and they have been increasingly worse in the last couple of months, where these men are getting scammed by these fake profiles, fake numbers, meeting on Google hangouts, whatever you can think of, it’s happening,” Spiranac said. “And then they come and find me or reach out to me and they’re very hostile, very angry because they’ve been scammed out of lots of money, or they think we were in a relationship and I had ghosted them.
“And the scariest part is the fact that all these profiles are anonymous and it’s hard to find out who these people are or when I go to an event or an appearance where there are a lot of people, I can’t put a face to a profile or a face to a name, so I don’t know who is out there… especially with everything that has been happening in the world.”
Spiranac explained that she has switched up her social media habits to increase her safety, especially when she is in public. She most recently stepped out for Maxim’s Hot 100 experience at Hyde Beach in Miami — one month after the magazine dubbed her the “sexiest woman alive.”
“I’ve been very, very anxious and nervous and scared and it’s gotten to the point now where I’ll go to events and I don’t post my location. I don’t post where I am… I’ll go days at a time where I’m at and I’m not posting and It’s because I am so scared that someone is gonna come up like what happened at ACC.”
Spiranac said she “doesn’t really leave” her home much, nor does she go out often due to scary fan encounters.
“I’m just starting to feel I’m living in this bubble and this is something I’ve never truly experienced before and I don’t have the resources or the money to always protect myself with security and it just takes time to handle things, especially when it’s done through the internet and social media,” the influencer said.
An emotional Spiranac said that as her star continues to rise, she continues to deal with increased “stalking” situations, which cause her anxiety.
“It’s costing me my safety and it’s really f–ked up,” she said.
Spiranac also warned that if a social media account with her name doesn’t have a blue checkmark, “It’s not me.”
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