Thanks to sophiehuntergossipblog for all the hard work she’s put in over the months into doing this research, as well as the other bloggers and anonymous submitters of the below information (please let me know if you are the original discoverer of anything you see).
Please check back with this original post (not reblogs) for updates.
1 Why did Hunter falsely claim to be Jane Birkin’s niece when she was trying to make it as a singer? An article that had to have had her approval appeared in Der Spiegel stating it as fact. One of her best friends is the ex-wife of Birkin’s nephew David Birkin: did he and his aunt consent to this false claim? (Hunter was songwriter Guy Chambers’ second choice for the album she did and her singing ability is dubious: Audrey Tautou was the first choice.)
2 Why did Hunter claim to come from a “modest” background when her grandfather, who was suspected to be a “coldhearted” traitor to England and one of the Cambridge Five, was a baron? The inconsistency was so blatant that a decade ago, when she was unknown, a journalist called her out on her claims, presumably because it was known she went to a posh boarding school and university.
3 Why does Hunter continue to claim she won the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award when in fact it was the theatre company BOiLERROOM that won it? She had a minor production role in the play that won the grant. Does everyone else who had minor parts in the production list the award in their CVs? (After the group won the grant, the production opened to poor reviews and The Guardian criticised the award’s existence, giving money to productions that may not live up to its hype.)
Two quotes from the reviews of the performance Hunter claims responsibility for:
-“it would benefit from a few more people who knew something about theatre”
-“I kept wondering whether an anaesthetist was involved, such is the soporific nature of the performance” – The Guardian
4 Why does so much of Hunter’s press since she married Benedict Cumberbatch claim she is an “opera director”? She has never directed an opera, and she never claimed to be one before she was linked romantically to Cumberbatch. The only opera-related jobs in her career was being part of the “creative team” in an opera production that was directed by Andy Staples, and she directed some performance loosely based on a Britten opera. She was also slated to work on a production for Opera For Change, which was to have taken place in Africa, but it was ultimately shelved and never performed.
5 Why has Hunter been claiming she’s the director of a performance of a play at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2015 when in fact she is guiding people through “a dusk walk” backed by the organisation? The walk is in October, not the summer when the actual Festival is held. The report came from WWD, the same source that also reported another work of hers that materialised: the information must have come from her directly, or it would not have been so accurate (and inaccurate) – no one could have pulled such specific information out of thin air to start a rumour.
6 Why did Hunter claim the work of Dr. Angela Moorjani of the University of Maryland as her own in a July 2015 article appearing in The Guardian? Dr. Moorjani sent an email to The Guardian censuring Hunter as well as the newspaper for deleting all comments calling them out on Hunter’s false claims and intellectual dishonesty.
7 Why does Hunter say she has founded three theatre companies, when at least one, Lacuna, lists her only as co-director? The company does not list her as having any hand in founding the company.
8 Why does Hunter list herself as a “creative director” of the company Sleep No More NYC? One person who works there told sophiehuntergossipblog her name does not appear in any of the company’s documents, and the blogger’s own research turned up similar. See this screencap of this post from sophiehuntergossipblog:
8 Since Hunter claims to be an opera director, why is she quoted as having called opera “staid” and its patrons as those who “shut their eyes and listen to music”? Even the most casual opera attendees know neither is the case in almost all contemporary productions of Western opera’s canon. (It is also incredibly insulting to the genre and its fans, but that is this author’s opinion.) Hunter’s comments seem to imply she, a supposed opera director, knows almost nothing about the field and how it is appreciated. She is also insulting those that put hard work into the visual aspect of any production.
9 Why does Hunter’s press hype list her as a writer when there is no record of her having written anything?
10 All of the above questions lead one to ask: how much involvement does Hunter have in the hype the press writes about her? Is Cumberbatch’s PR team enlisting his friends in various newspapers to publish fabricated credentials for Hunter to boost her career and make her seem more respected and talented than she really is? There is a strong argument for this theory after The Guardian has refused to acknowledge the dishonesty of Hunter’s July 2015 Beckett/Racine article, where she claims Dr. Angela Moorjani’s work as her own.
11 Why is part of Hunter’s hype in the press, claiming how great a person she is, about how she allegedly speaks two languages other than English? India, and most of Continental Europe and Africa can do that too. (Talk about benefiting from low expectations.)
12 Hunter’s press hype says she graduated from Oxford but she does not appear on publicly available graduate rolls. Did she really graduate?
13 Has Hunter ever had a day job? Has her creative work ever given her an income that she can actually live off of? Hunter said when she was in her early 30s that her parents still financed her breezy lifestyle that judging by photos included lots of parties with rich people. It is notoriously nearly impossible to gain a liveable income in avant garde theatre, and is therefore mostly a career path pursued by trust fund brats. (See question 2.)
14 Why did Hunter shamelessly promote her scant career as a director when discussing her alleged wedding dress of all things in a fashion magazine? (“From a directorial point of view I see opera in it, I see art, I see theatre.”) Whether she actually wore that dress to her wedding is up for fierce debate and in doubt: all evidence points to her wearing a different, used dress made in 2013. If anything, to get a bit Freudian, it points strongly in favour of the argument Hunter views her marriage primarily as a mercenary and self-serving endeavour.
15 How did Hunter stay in the USA for half a decade without a permanent residence visa or any evidence of a stable job? Getting a work visa in the USA is notoriously difficult, and impossible for most.
She looks like a freeloading dunce I’m afraid! Plain and simple she lived off the bank of mum and dad Then captured a wealthy BC. She wouldn’t know a hard days work if it slapped her in the face. Madam freeload that’s a great new name for her!
