Original subtitles

Amanda, so, your journey has been something unique,

but before we dive into kind of all the deep talk,

I think there's a lot of people in here who know you, clearly.

I mean, you're the queen of the house,

and we love you dearly.

Amanda's beautiful, and she's vivacious.

Everybody loved her.

Why don't you kind of give us a little bit of background

on how you came to know God and et cetera?

Sure. Um, I'm...

Or not. You don't have to.

You just wanted to be her friend.

My name's Amanda.

Uh, everybody here calls me Amanda C. Riley.

She was an honest, transparent, kind soul.

I grew up a really good childhood.

I had a great-- I have a great life.

She had a perfect little family.

Corey was so enamored with her.

When we got married, we knew that

we definitely wanted to raise our kids in church.

They were the poster family for the church.

But overnight, everything changed.

When I got the official diagnosis,

it blindsided me.

We felt so bad for her.

She was suffering in such a complicated and deep way.

I cannot feel my legs. I can't move my feet.

I wake up with a blinding migraine every day.

I said, "Amanda, whatever I can do

to support you, you let me know."

She started a blog.

It blew up pretty quickly.

Amanda was the symbol of hope in the church.

She was worshipped.

Everything about being sick brought me closer to God

instead of pushing me away.

She has celebrities tweeting to her.

People donated

thousands and thousands of dollars.

We thought she was God's gift.

Can we give her a hand, y'all? Come on.

But little things here and there,

something didn't seem right to me.

All the stories she told didn't add up

and didn't make sense.

I told them, I will find the truth.

I was shocked.

We were rooting for her.

Next thing you know,

there's all these SUVs flying past us.

And it was all caught on camera.

SWAT members surrounded the property.

It's insane. It's absolutely insane.

Everyone was talking about it.

Who would do something like this?

It was all over TikTok.

I need more.

Who's the real Amanda? I can't answer that.

She's legit. She's telling the truth, right?

Everything happens for a reason, and it's all in God's timing.

She's a great storyteller.

There's so much more to the story.

Don't ignore Jesus,

because He is always there, and it would be unfortunate

if He brought you your miracle and you weren't watching.

The area that Amanda's story took place

is around San Francisco Bay.

So you've got Palo Alto and San Jose

surrounded by the rolling hills of Silicon Valley,

which has created a lot of affluence.

So the area is extremely rich.

And this is where Amanda C. Riley's

unbelievable tale unfolds.

I'm just gonna have you

introduce yourself to me. What's your name?

Um, hi, my name is Amanda Riley.

- That was it? Cut. Done. - I did it! Yes.

Amanda grew up in California

and met a man named Corey,

who had a daughter called Jessa from a previous relationship.

I met Amanda when her stepdaughter was

in my daughter's class.

They were new to the school,

and my daughter immediately bonded with her,

and they became friends.

And we became friends with Corey and Amanda.

I was always a strong person. I was always a go-getter.

I've always been a doer. I've always been a happy person.

I've always been kind of like glass half full.

Amanda was probably twenty-four, twenty-five.

She was younger than the moms in the class.

And she was very excited about being a stepmother to Jessa.

Corey seemed very devoted to Amanda.

And we introduced Corey and Amanda to other families

because they were new.

It was really fun.

Amanda would say, "You look just like my mother."

"You are my doppelganger mother."

That was really nice.

Lisa found Amanda really sweet.

They got on really well.

And Corey had a great relationship with Steve.

And they were an older couple, so I think they felt

that Corey and Amanda were this younger couple

and they were kind of vibrant.

And it was a really nice addition to their lives.

They were so happy as a little family of three.

She and Corey had actually gotten married

by the Justice of the Peace,

and they were going to have a big wedding

in the Central Coast, on a cliff.

She asked if my daughter would be a flower girl.

And I was invited to be part of the wedding

as a groomsman.

It was a really lovely wedding.

The day was beautiful.

They were this happy, perfect little family.

Amanda's beautiful, and she's vivacious.

I honestly was so enraptured with Amanda

that I offered to help photograph her wedding.

I worked with Amanda's mom, Peggy.

Peggy had told me a bit about Amanda,

and she's like, "You'll love Amanda."

"She's totally someone you would be friends with."

"You're just going to love each other."

And I felt that way.

Amanda was already a stepmom,

and was so thrilled when she found out

she was going to have a baby of her own.

I grew closer to Amanda.

when she was pregnant.

I photographed her for her maternity shoot.

I just felt an affinity for Amanda.

And so whenever we, you know, connected,

it was always just very deep.

It wasn't too long after the baby was born

that Amanda and Corey became a big part

of the Family Community Church.

It's a church that has

close to five thousand congregants.

They either come in person or watch online.

It's classified as a megachurch,

like Hillsong or Lakewood Church in Houston.

Thousands and thousands of people

attend these services that are more like events.

They have preachers on stage,

guest speakers, music, and guitars.

It was like going to a concert, but for the Lord.

The first time I went to FCC,

I walked in there as an atheist.

When the doors open, there was fog.

On the stage, there was this band.

It was dim.

It was exciting.

People were jumping up and down. Everybody had their hands up,

praising something, loving each other,

just generally being happy.

It was almost as love was raining down like confetti.

People were like, "Hi, welcome."

Amanda became very popular at FCC.

She was part of lots of different groups,

and she would promote them on the church's social media.

Are you a mom? Do you want to get connected with other moms?

If you're married, engaged, dating,

come out to our Marriage Oneness class July 16th at 7:00 p.m.

In 2012, Amanda was a mother and a stepmother.

She was a wife.

She was a Christian,

and became very active in her community,

very charming, very well-liked.

And then all of a sudden, she was diagnosed with cancer.

I said, "Amanda has cancer?"

I was, you know, worried for them.

You know, they had a little baby,

and they just started their life together.

And I couldn't believe it.

It literally is my worst nightmare.

This is a friend of mine and a new mother

who was going through, like, the unimaginable.

I remember just feeling like gutted.

This came on suddenly, it came on hard.

A lot of people felt sorry for her and wanted to help.

So Amanda started a blog.

And she headlined it very simply,

"My Story, Our Journey."

I have Hodgkin's Lymphoma,

and it's been quite the journey to figure it out.

A two-year journey, to be exact.

She wanted the blog to be a place

where family and friends could be updated.

Amanda wanted to be inspirational,

and she wanted to help others.

A lot of people started reading her blog.

I mean, it blew up pretty quickly.

There were so many posts, long posts with pictures...

experiences...

She became extremely popular.

The support has been amazingly encouraging,

overwhelming, and wonderful!

At some point, I started reading her blog.

And she's posting pictures.

And I just was surprised.

Seeing all the attention that she's getting for it...

there was just something inside of me

just saying, "This isn't right."

If you think about social media

and the way that we look at how many likes we get,

and we post, and the way we live in our world now...

For Amanda, the blog was something

that made her feel good.

The prayers and well wishes are amazing.

So thank you all!

I don't remember how I first started following it,

but I was reading it whenever I could.

My mom would read it as well.

She was like, "Hey, there's a new blog up,"

and get on and look at the blog

and follow what was going on.

I ended up having to get

the neupogen shots, like the doctor predicted.

I thought, "Well, wow," like,

"She's really putting herself out there."

My bones and joints

are hurting pretty bad.

I think my great-grandma that is pushing 100

could run circles around me.

Her thing was always,

"I'm trying to make awareness."

"I wanna make sure that people understand

what this disease is like."

I'm not shiny bald yet,

but my hair isn't growing anymore,

and it breaks at the roots when I wash it.

"And if by me telling my story helps other people,

then great, I don't mind putting myself out there."

Penny interview. Take one.

I have been a longtime

American Cancer Society volunteer.

It's a personal battle for me.

I am a cancer survivor.

And so, I followed Amanda's blog pretty carefully.

There was hope.

Twelve months of testing,

eight months of chemotherapy,

and today is my day of bliss. We won!

She told us she thought she'd beat it.

As of Friday,

I have been officially labeled as being in soft remission.

We were rooting for her, and we wanted her to be okay.

You've got this online community.

And you've got the American Cancer Society as well.

But then you've also got the church community.

My father-in-law is the pastor

of Family Community Church.

Amanda got to know our family,

and she and Cory became good friends with us.

I was aware of the blog. I didn't follow it necessarily,

largely because I didn't need the blog

to know how she was doing.

We are so lucky and blessed.

Truly, with our whole hearts, thank you.

Amanda was kind of like a celebrity at FCC.

She was good at telling her story.

I never really had a pity party but it was just kind of like,

"Oh, well, there's the end of my story,"

you know, kinda thing. Um...

And God's up there going, "Nope..."

...like, "Your story's about to start."

She would start giving testimony from the stage.

She could sit there in front of a room

of over a thousand people, give her testimony.

I... I was so sick.

I was hospitalized for weeks at a time.

I couldn't get out of bed.

And she would captivate us every time.

It got to the point where I was, uh, kind of talking about it,

and we were praying about it,

and we weren't really sure what to do.

When I came into FCC,

she was very well-known as the girl who had cancer.

...that we're angry with God. We try to hide from God.

Don't stop talking to Him.

If you're angry with Him, tell Him...

But she was so positive. She had charisma.

If you're going through something,

share it with Him. Give it to Him.

Don't ignore Jesus because He is always there.

And it would be unfortunate if he brought you your miracle

and you weren't watching.

The miracle in itself that she could be so terminal

and so alive at the same time...

led me to believe that she was anointed.

We were just... "Wow, this is amazing."

She emulated this hope, this faith,

this, "I believe."

"Look at what God has done to this woman."

And "Even though she's fighting,

like, look how inspiring she is."

I'll never forget the doctor's words.

He said, um...

"Your cancer's back, and you're pregnant."

When I went down to do her second maternity shoot,

I remember talking to her and she's like,

"I know, it's such a miracle baby."

She said, "I had an IUD

because I was going through treatment

and I got pregnant with the IUD while doing treatment."

After all this chemo and radiation she had,

she's pregnant with the second one.

I was the babysitter for Amanda and Cory's first one.

I said, "Amanda,

what's happening now with you being pregnant?"

"Oh, my doctor says I could stop the chemo and radiation

or anything that is for my cancer

till the baby's born. And then we could start again."

I said, "Amanda, this is your life."

"You have another child to think about."

"This one is not here yet."

She says, "No. They said it's gonna be safe,

so I'm gonna do that."

She told everyone that she was having another baby.

We met with a panel of doctors

that specialize in pregnancy during cancer

and learned that this was very doable,

safe, and possible.

It's like the best news ever.

She's posting about this miracle pregnancy

and sharing pictures of her growing belly.

And then she's posting that she's at stage four again.

Five hospital stays

and 32 doctor's appointments

and lab visits in January alone.

And forgive us our trespasses.

The first time I prayed, oh, my goodness.

I was only two seats down from her

before she stood up, and I heard her say,

"Feeling dizzy. I need... I need..."

"I need to get some water."

So, she exited the church and on the way back,

fainted while simultaneously urinating on herself.

I just remember Pastor Chase saying, like,

"Oh, Amanda passed out."

"Everyone," like, "lay your hands out."

Like, "Let's start praying for her."

Everybody ran up to her.

The core leadership ran up to her.

They put their hands over her. Everybody did.

They put their hands in the circle and said,

"Heal this woman. Heal her. Oh, God, heal her."

That was the first time I got down on my knees...

clasped my hands together...

and said, "Dear God, please save this woman."

"She doesn't deserve this."

In April 2014, Amanda's second son was born,

and it was a healthy baby boy.

And of course, they shared the wonderful news.

We just thought Cory was such a dedicated husband

and such a dedicated father.

The husband of all husbands

that I truly could not get through this without.

When I picture Cory,

I picture him standing behind Amanda.

And I would hear the stories about him being her hero.

My impression was that he was kind of her rock. And...

I so admired him for what he was doing for her.

Amanda had had to quit jobs due to her medical condition.

And I knew that money was really tight

with everything they were going through.

And I just continued to ask Amanda, like,

"What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?"

Because when it's your health and it's life or death,

like, nothing should be out of bounds because of cost.

I can remember getting emails from Peggy.

She was the one that told me about the website.

And I donated 500 dollars.

And I can remember Amanda reaching out to me,

so emotional, and saying, like, "Rebecca, you have no idea

how impactful this was."

And I know that she gave me a lot of shout-outs in her blog.

We literally could not be where we are

in this fight without you being a part of this.

Your family alone have put years on my life.

From that time on, I started donating 500 dollars a month.

Amanda's website was a place

where people could donate.

The church community was also very eager to help Amanda.

One time, during a Sunday service,

the pastor brought Amanda and Cory up on stage.

There was that infamous fog machine...

making this a very beautiful,

angelic, mystical, special experience.

That pastor felt led in that moment,

during that service to do a love offering.

A church this size, if each family gives a dollar,

it can be significant enough

to be a huge blessing to the Riley family.

People slowly walked up to the stage.

Praying, praising the Lord.

They threw the money at her feet.

There was almost no hesitation. People just got up and gave.

People were giving 20s, flooding towards the stage.

There was a tremendous amount of money left on the stage.

I mean, it was just for them.

The church had never done anything like that.

And then afterwards,

Amanda was thanking everyone for their generosity.

So truly blessed!

Pastor asked to share my story,

then followed it by taking a dollar offering,

and all the money is being donated to

www.supportamanda.com.

I was very dedicated into helping her. Um...

I remember going to the bank and taking a picture

and posting on Facebook and being like,

"This one's for you, Amanda."

I was actively...

promoting her, basically.

'Cause a lot of people were asking me about her.

They started reading her blog.

#TeamAmanda has been busy as ever.

On June 24th, if you eat at any of four Bay Area Chili's,

20% of your bill will be donated to our family.

One day, I get an email out of the blue.

It said there's this fundraiser at Chili's.

And 20% of the proceeds of all four Chili's restaurants

are going to go to Amanda Riley.

I was blown away.

We had ended our relationship

with Cory and Amanda.

And down the road,

Lisa was coming across a number of different things

that were coming up on social media

and it was really bothering her.

The year she told me about the cancer was 2010.

Well, now she's been diagnosed for the very first time in 2012.

And I was so, so sick.

Lisa knew that something just wasn't quite right about Amanda.

We decided to have a birthday party for Lisa.

Amanda and Cory had come.

They had shared earlier that they weren't sure

if they were going to come.

Later on in the evening, Cory got this kind of

look on his face.

And he took the opportunity

to share that Amanda had stage four cancer.

And the prognosis didn't look good.

They gave her only a very little amount of time.

Steve told me that Amanda was stage four

and she had six to 12 months to live.

And I was really devastated getting this news.

I just felt so bad. They had just gotten married.

I really cried a lot about that.

My first wife passed away

after an eight-year battle with breast cancer.

I knew what that looked like.

We made ourselves available to help

with Amanda's stepdaughter.

Amanda said, "Can you pick Jessa up for school?"

"Can you watch her?"

And of course I did.

And then I started thinking, "She's stage four."

"She's dying. Where are her parents?"

"How come they're not coming around?"

"I thought they were close."

And I actually asked her at one point,

you know, "Where are your parents?"

"You're so sick, and where are they?"

And she said, "Oh, they're just really busy."

And then Amanda said

that she needed a blood test to save her life...

and wanted to know if I could loan her the money

for the blood test.

It felt awkward.

But I gave her the money.

You want to support people

that are in a difficult situation.

But it's also important to be cautious

when someone is pulling on our heartstrings

for some sort of support.

One day, Amanda said she was in the hospital.

So I picked Jessa up from school

to come swimming at our home.

And Amanda arrived after the hospital.

She came, and she got in the swimming pool.

She was having a good time.

And she kinda turned to the side,

and she had a very small, round Band-Aid behind her ear.

So I asked her why she had the Band-Aid behind her ear.

I was curious.

And that's when she told me that she had just had...

fluid drained off her brain in the hospital.

So she was coming from the hospital,

and she swam underwater

after having fluid drained off her brain.

I knew that wasn't right,

and I start going through my mind

and thinking about all the stories she told me.

There were so many things in my mind.

She had this long story about how she bought this house.

And it turned out, the house was a rental.

She said there was gonna be a bridal magazine

covering her wedding.

And by the way, she also claims

that she's working on a PhD in clinical psychology

at Stanford.

So many stories that didn't make sense,

that I just... I didn't buy, but I just brushed off,

just ignored.

But now, I know.

Now, I know that she's a liar.

She swam underwater,

after having fluid drained off of her brain.

I knew that wasn't right.

I wanted Cory and Amanda out of our lives.

I stopped answering her phone calls, and...

she started calling my niece.

She told my niece that she was pregnant

and that she was going to ask me and Steve

to be the godparents of the baby.

She kept calling.

Finally, I realized

I was gonna have to talk to her at some point.

So I answered the phone.

And she said, "I'm pregnant."

And I said, "I thought you were dying."

I said, "I thought you were dying."

And she said, "Oh, uh, the pregnancy

is reversing the disease."

"The pregnancy is reversing the cancer."

They just wanted to be in pretend mode.

They were never going to admit that they did anything wrong.

And I hung up the phone,

and I have not spoken to her since.

Amanda was part of Lisa's life two years before Amanda said

she was diagnosed with cancer on her blog.

And after the Chili's fundraiser,

Lisa starts to read Amanda's blog.

A huge thank you to Heather

and all four Chili's locations

that hosted a fundraiser for our family,

as well as the hundreds of people

and dozens of servers that participated.

It was a wonderful way to spend my birthday!

I'm reading through this blog.

There's just fundraiser after fundraiser.

I'm just reading all this stuff.

And she had people giving signed guitars...

and trips to New York and baseball games, everything.

I couldn't believe that she could actually

take it to that level.

And I saw that "Fight Song" video.

♪ This is my fight song Take back my life song... ♪

To raise money for Amanda and to get her story out there,

they made a video and used Rachel Platten's "Fight Song,"

which is such an empowering anthem

and lyrically speaks to what Amanda was going through.

♪ Right now, I'll be strong ♪

♪ I'll play my fight song ♪

The "Fight Song."

There was this beautiful couple within the church.

And as a gift, this very sweet couple

decided to make this awareness music video

for Amanda and the family.

Picture them dressed in white, just frolicking along the beach.

You know, the hair blowing in the wind,

along with "Fight Song" playing.

Family sitting around a fire,

and a bunch of people holding signs that said,

"Team Amanda." And not to brag,

but yes, I am in the video.

We were all crying watching her video.

And she stood behind me, she's patting me on the back.

"It's okay, everything's gonna be okay."

She had so many people in this video.

I was so upset when I saw it.

She says, "Let's make this viral."

And I gave it a thumbs down.

That was my only thing I could do,

was give it a thumbs down.

And then I called a few of my friends,

and I said, "Can you give it a thumbs down, this video?"

Well, she made a reference in one of her blogs

to people not supporting her.

You really learn who's there for you

when you have nothing else to give.

And I knew... I knew it was the downvotes that got her.

Although it hurt when some friends

and even family haven't really shown support,

the amount of people following my story

is something I couldn't have even fathomed

before cancer. Thank you. You are #TeamAmanda.

She was so young and beautiful and vibrant.

The struggle that she was experiencing,

she wasn't doing it silently.

She was dying

but she wanted you to know that she was living.

On a positive, my heart is so full.

Thank you to anyone and everyone

for supporting our family during this time.

The best visual I can give you of Amanda C. Riley

is her on the middle of a stage

with that fog creeping around her ankles,

with the lights shining, short hair, her saying,

"Oh, God, thank you for giving me another day."

I'm grateful for the experience

because I wouldn't have the relationship with God

that I have now if I didn't have cancer.

My name is Nancy Moscatiello, and I am

a investigative producer for television.

In 2015, I had been working on a television show

that was about to launch called Crime Watch Daily.

We were prepping stories, shooting stories,

and getting ready for the launch in September.

And one of the things we had hoped to be able to do

was reach out and find different types of scam stories.

I posted in various groups, saying,

"Hey, I'm a producer for a television show."

"This is the types of stories we're looking for."

I had gotten some emails,

and one of 'em had a lot of detail in it

and a lot of information about,

"Hey, you should look at this woman."

"She's in the Northern California area."

Can you read the first couple sentences?

Mm-hmm.

"Hi, Nancy. I am contacting you

because I saw a comment you left."

"I believe that I have a story

that you might be very interested in checking out."

"There is a 30-year-old woman in Silicon Valley, California,

who is now claiming to have stage-four blood cancer."

This person was adamant that they knew

that what she was saying was false...

and that she didn't have cancer.

So that intrigued me.

There was a lot of information to go on.

So I started to look

at the different things she sent me,

including the woman's blog.

There was a lot to look at, but I also knew

that I needed to keep an open mind and be objective.

Just because someone thinks something

doesn't mean it's true.

This tipster felt very confident

in sending me all this information,

but they also wanted to remain anonymous.

I understood that. That's really, really, common.

However, I knew who they were, and I had no problem

keeping their secret for as long as they wanted.

Nancy's source insisted on anonymity.

I really didn't know if she would ever be comfortable

with coming forward and being identified

as the person that said Amanda Riley didn't have cancer.

People are all trying to figure out who she was,

and I kept that secret for years.

My name is Lisa Berry.

And I am the anonymous source.

It's time. I'm proud of it.

I'm proud that I'm the anonymous source.

Lisa felt the need to contact me

to help with the situation she was watching unravel.

But the biggest concern I had was,

what if she actually did have cancer?

All she has to say is, "They're lying."

And then we are the bad people who just accused

this poor dying, young mother, member of her church community,

speaker at her church.

We are accusing her of faking cancer.

We would be awful people doing that.