Keith Papini reflects on lies wife Sherri Papini shared before her kidnapping hoax

Sherri Papini dominated national headlines in 2016 after the California woman claimed to be kidnapped, held captive and tortured for 22 days. Years later, it was unraveled as nothing more than a hoax.

Keith Papini, Sherri's husband at the time, revealed in a new interview how she was known to exaggerate stories and lie, but he says he was often blinded by love or manipulated by her.

Now he's warning the public to not heed her words.

“Even if she were to come out someday and do a book or magazine, I can assure you that whatever is in there is going to be what she thinks she should say to get whatever goal she’s after, but it will not be the truth,” Keith told People Magazine.

Sherri Papini's story has returned to the spotlight with the Hulu series "Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini" released this month.

She went missing on Nov. 2, 2016 while on a jog near her Redding, California, home. She claimed she was abducted by two Hispanic women, beaten, branded, and held captive for 22 days. She resurfaced on the side of highway, found wearing restraints and covered in bruises.

However, over five years later, she was arrested on federal charges in March 2022 as authorities revealed she made up the whole story and had been staying with an ex-boyfriend in the time she was missing, all while defrauding the state out of more than $30,000 in victim assistance money in the following years.

Keith Papini, who filed for divorce from Sherri, is now a single dad raising their two children, Violet, 9, and Tyler, 11.

“She definitely had a history of exaggerating. And I would say at this point, lying,” Keith told People.

“There’s a lot of things I didn’t question,” he said. “I grew up with a lovely mother and father. I was never around a dishonest person to that extent growing up. And when we first got together and she told me things, I believed her. I wouldn’t know why I wouldn’t.”

“She told me she went to college down in Orange County, she told me she was in ballet. She told me she used to sell cars at a dealership and all these different things, and I wasn’t going to go calling around to verify that those were real. But there were definitely some things where I’m like, ‘Hey, the timeline doesn’t match up. Like, you said you did this or you lived at this spot, but this doesn’t make sense to me because the timeline’s not right,’” he explained.

Keith said "she always had a way of just skirting around it" and he "just kind of went along with it."

He said he recalled moments where Sherri would lie in front of him, and when he’d call her out, she’d manipulate him into apologizing.

“It was almost like I was making excuses for her," and I think she was able to exploit that from me," Keith said.

“If something wasn’t adding up, she would be quick to move it to where, ‘Well, it’s because of this and my childhood, and you didn’t experience that you had loving parents.’ And she would almost twist it in a way. Now looking back, that I can see. But in the moment, it’s more like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me give you a hug,’ and you kind of move on.”

Keith noted that he "accepted her flaws" because he was "head over heels for her."

“At the end of the day, you feel like if you can trust anyone, it’s your partner in life. But I was wrong,” he said.

Sherri Papini pleaded guilty in April 2022 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. She was released from federal prison to community confinement in August 2023, and since been released from that.

She’s also yet to pay her $300,000 fine in restitution for the hoax, according to a court document filed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, NBC affiliate KCRA of Sacramento reported.