Several months ago, after her breakout performance in the Bachelor franchise, Corinne Olympios received an alluring offer: a European media outlet wanted to award her “Reality Star of the Year.”

Olympios and her team had reason to believe the offer was authentic. The Miami-born Olympios had charmed The Bachelor’s millions of viewers by delivering ingenious lines (sample: “My heart is gold, but my vagine is platinum”), never-before-seen moments (she napped through a rose ceremony), and an up-front attitude about sex. The Cut declared her the “Best Bachelor Contestant of All Time,” and she was soon recruited to appear on Bachelor in Paradise, where she found herself at the center of one of the franchise’s biggest scandals. (Production was shut down following a drunken sexual encounter between Olympios and contestant DeMario Jackson, which Olympios has said she does not remember. After hiring heavyweight Hollywood lawyer Marty Singer, Olympios declined to press charges, but chose not to return to the series. Warner Bros. concluded there was no misconduct after conducting its own investigation, but introduced new policies to ensure the “safety and security” of everyone involved in filming. Jackson has denied any wrongdoing on his part.)

Finally free from The Bachelor universe in late 2017, the newly famous 26-year-old was besieged by interview requests, sponsorship possibilities, and other miscellaneous offers—like the “Reality Star of the Year” honor. Any doubts about the show itself—a U.K. ceremony allegedly called “Hot 100”—were assuaged when producers told Olympios’s team that they were in discussion with Showtime over distribution rights, a kernel of truth in what proved to be an elaborately choreographed smoke screen. Olympios’s handlers had no clue that Sacha Baron Cohen—the comedian who lures unsuspecting subjects into making outrageous statements—had invented new characters for a top-secret, politically skewed project. And even if they had, why would Cohen be targeting Olympios—the girl didn’t need elaborate setups to land ridiculous lines. This is the woman who nonchalantly announced on The Bachelor that, at the age of 24, she had a “nanny” to do her laundry and make her meals—like the cheesy pasta recipe she had not been able to nail on her own. (Later, she published the “recipe” through Us Weekly—essentially “boil pasta and add sprinkled cheese.”) This is the girl who, after catching some flack for sleeping through aforesaid rose ceremony, made the immortal point: “Michael Jordan took naps. Abraham Lincoln took naps. And I’m in trouble for napping?”

There were calls back and forth between Team “Hot 100” and Team Olympios—as part of the deal, she was told, Olympios would be photographed for the cover of an Italian magazine. Logistics were negotiated. Wardrobe was discussed. A “producer” for “Hot 100” called Olympios ahead of the photo shoot to conduct a pre-interview, during which he asked the reality star standard questions about her experience on The Bachelor.

“Everything was so professionally done,” Olympios said in a recent phone interview. “You would never know it was a setup. They called me about hair and makeup, this, that, told me what to bring.”

The day of the shoot, Olympios brought her manager along to the nondescript studio. Everything seemed aboveboard. Olympios had her hair and makeup done, and while her manager was distracted taking phone calls, a production staffer handed Olympios release forms to sign. Then, the reality star was ushered into the next room, but not before fielding a strange request.