Kyle Deschanel, the mysterious figure at the center of TikTok’s latest firestorm, seemed to be, by several accounts, a charismatic mainstay on the high-class East Coast party circuit with friends in high places and money to blow.
He boasted to one woman that he was related to Paul Eugène Louis Deschanel, a former President of France; to others, he said he was a descendant of the Rothschilds, the famous Ashkenazi Jewish banking dynasty. He often bragged about his connections to the government of Saudi Arabia, saying he was working on negotiating a nuclear trade deal, and claimed to be friends with A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Amber Heard.
But according to three women who spoke to The Daily Beast about their experiences with Kyle Deschanel, he is a master illusionist who’s managed to dupe several women into thinking he’s someone he’s not.
Deschanel became public enemy No. 1 on TikTok when a user named Eva Evans said the following in a video posted on June 20: “I recently found out that a guy that I was dating led a double life. He had a fake identity. He had a fake name, he had a fake job, he had a fake history and he apparently had a very real wife and kid. And he didn’t just scam me, he scammed all of downtown New York City.”
Evans’ video soon went viral, prompting other New York women to come forward with their own stories of meeting “Kyle Deschanel” on various dating apps. It wasn’t long before they theorized the man they’d met wasn’t only using a false name and lying to them, but was also leaving a trail of shady, unsettling behavior in his wake.
According to a member of an Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey, who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, “Kyle Deschanel” is actually Aryeh Dodelson, 35, a recently divorced rabbi and a father of one. The source described Dodelson as a prominent, respected figure in their Orthodox community who once authored a dense text on Jewish divorce law. A 2013 shabbat bulletin from West Side Institutional Synagogue in Manhattan lists Aryeh Malkiel Dodelson as a rabbi at Khal Netzach Yehoshua, a synagogue in Lakewood. The bulletin reads in part, “Rabbi Dodelson lives in Lakewood with his wife Ahuva and their son Naftali.”
A search of public records found that “Kyle’s” disconnected phone number—which three women who knew Deschanel used to get in touch with him—is one formerly used by Aryeh Dodelson.
The Lakewood resident also pointed The Daily Beast to a photograph of Dodelson that shows him clad in Orthodox garb. Deschanel’s heavily edited Hinge photos can’t entirely disguise the resemblance.
The Lakewood resident told The Daily Beast that Deschanel/Dodelson has been the main topic of conversation among Lakewood Orthodox Jews since TikTok took up the mystery of his identity. “Many people have been talking about it,” they said. “To see someone at such heights stoop to such lows is pretty crazy and unheard of.”
Neither Dodelson nor any members of his extended family, including his ex-wife, responded to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
Gemma, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told The Daily Beast she dated Deschanel on and off for four months after meeting him at Paul’s Baby Grand, a trendy cocktail lounge off Sixth Avenue. “He was very charismatic and he seemed to know everyone,” Gemma said. Deschanel was gentlemanly, calling Ubers for Gemma whenever they had plans, and they didn’t hook up until their seventh date, she said.
According to Gemma and another woman who told The Daily Beast she dated Deschanel, he frequently threw parties and entertained dates at 514 Broome Street, a handsome townhouse adjacent to a pair of pricey Soho brunch spots where he often held court: Little Ways and Maison Close. Throughout their courtship, Deschanel also brought Gemma to a loft on Church Street across from Paul’s Baby Grand and a two-story pad in the West Village, she said.
“I don’t understand how he was able to have all these places,” Gemma told The Daily Beast. “I think what he told me was that he was just looking and hadn’t decided where he wanted to stay yet.”
“He said that when 9/11 happened, he was one of the highest-ranking U.S. citizens in the Saudi government, and therefore he got indicted. He said it ended up being fine, because he was like, ‘You couldn’t arrest a Saudi official.’”
Built in the 1930s, 514 Broome St. has the distinction of being the only freestanding townhouse in Soho. According to property records, since May of 2015, the townhouse has been owned by Seth Harris, an attorney at the Manhattan-based firm Harris Keenan & Goldfarb.
514 Broome was put on the market several times over the last few years—once from 2018 to 2019, and again from 2021 to 2022—but never sold. The townhouse is currently on the market again; it was re-listed in May. How Deschanel managed to take up residence in the townhouse is unclear; Seth Harris has yet to respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
Deschanel’s unexplained multiple residences was just the tip of his strange behavior, Gemma said. In Eva Evans’ original TikTok video about Deschanel, she recounted how he apologized for ghosting her by vaguely sharing that he “had to go to Saudi for political reasons.” He once gave a similarly curious story to Gemma.
“He told me this weird story. I mean, now it sounds completely insane,” Gemma told The Daily Beast. “He said that when 9/11 happened, he was one of the highest-ranking U.S. citizens in the Saudi government, and therefore he got indicted. He said it ended up being fine, because he was like, ‘You couldn’t arrest a Saudi official.’”
Gemma says Deschanel told her he was 37, which would have meant he was 16 years old when two commercial airlines hit the World Trade Center in 2001.
Gemma’s suspicions about Deschanel heightened when, in February, he told friends that he was hosting a charity fundraiser for SameYou, Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke’s brain injury recovery charity.
“Hey I’m hosting a charity event in my house tonight at 7pm,” Deschanel texted Gemma in messages reviewed by The Daily Beast. “With Emilia and Jenny Clarke. Would love to see you there if you can make it.”
Deschanel sent an invite link to Gemma that described the event as an opportunity “to connect and meet an incredible charity focused on stroke recovery/social-emotional learning.” He also sent a link to a page soliciting donations, ostensibly for SameYou, with the option to donate in the amounts of $1000, $2500, $5000, or a custom amount.
The SameYou website’s official donation page, meanwhile, gives the option to donate $20, $30, $50, or a custom amount.
It’s unclear whether any donations collected at the event made it to SameYou, or whether they were collected by Deschanel or by someone else, but there’s no evidence Clarke ever attended the event, or that SameYou and Deschanel were working together. A rep for Clarke declined to comment on the record, and SameYou did not return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
How “Kyle Deschanel” was funding his purportedly lavish lifestyle also remains a mystery. He boasted to his dates about his investment firm Oxshott Capital, and is listed as the firm’s managing director. The Daily Beast’s calls and emails to Deschanel and other members of the firm were not returned.
In July of 2022, the Times of India reported that Oxshott Capital failed to transfer a $250 million deposit to edtech startup BYJU, prompting India’s parliament to recommend that a fraud investigation be launched to dig into BYJU’s finances. The Enforcement Directorate, India’s domestic law enforcement agency, proceeded with the investigation into BYJU and founder Byju Raveendran, TechCrunch reported in April. The ED collected several “incriminating” documents in the course of their search, which they conducted under the provisions of India’s anti-money laundering law, the organization said.
Business ventures aside, however, it was Deschanel’s romantic endeavors that led to his viral moment.
Liv, who asked that her full name not be used, told The Daily Beast she went on a chaotic first date with Deschanel in January. She said the blue-eyed, handsome man she matched with on Hinge showed up to their Saturday brunch plans looking like “he had been partying for the last 36 hours.” Throughout their date, he also “kept going to the bathroom” to snort what he told Liv was cocaine, she told The Daily Beast.
“I’ve never seen someone who looks so haggard in my life,” Liv said, adding that Deschanel listed his age as 32 on his profile. “The Hinge photos were so heavily edited.”
Deschanel told Liv that he worked for the Saudi government and contributed to negotiations of a nuclear trade deal alongside an American congressman. In a wild coincidence, Liv’s aunt is the chief of staff for the congressman Deschanel claimed to be connected to, she said.
“I immediately texted my aunt,” Liv said, “and [she] was like, ‘I have no fucking idea who that is.’ He kind of got caught with his pants down.”
After brunch, Liv told The Daily Beast that Deschanel took her to the townhouse at 514 Broome, which she noted “wasn’t interior-decorated.” She added, “For what you’re spending on that type of home, you would expect it to at least have more than a couch and a bed.”
While at the townhouse, Deschanel made an attempt to hook up with Liv that she said she was “able to fend off.” Later, he offered to call Liv an Uber, but insisted on tagging along on the ride himself.
“He tries his little hookup routine once again,” Liv said. “We get to my apartment and I’m just like, literally, no. And he was more visibly upset at that point. He was kind of like, ‘Why would you have me back here if we’re not gonna hook up? And I’m like, ‘You offered to Uber me home, so this one’s on you.’ He just kind of stormed out, which, to be quite honest with you, I was perfectly fine with.”
Deschanel continued to text Liv incessantly after they parted ways, requesting a second date. At one point, building on a habit of bragging about connections to celebrities, he even offered to bring her to an SNL afterparty.
According to screenshots of text messages reviewed by The Daily Beast, at one point, Deschanel texted Liv a message that appears designed to read like he’d sent it to the wrong number: “There needs to be better controls around the password / I’ll tell Colin, this week is anyways fucked cuz it’s a small venue, it’ll be best to just stay at 30R for the wrap and not have to deal.”
“Colin,” Liv guessed, is likely a reference to SNL star Colin Jost.
Deschanel certainly gave his dates the appearance of being rich and well-connected: “I ran into him at the Warby Parker CEO’s 4th of July Hamptons party and he introduced me to Bella Thorne,” Gemma said. “Later I ran into him in Miami and he was with Cuba Gooding Jr.”
Like Liv, Amanda (not her real name), a 20-year-old student in NYC, told The Daily Beast that she too met Deschanel last January, and noticed what she called “weird, stalker-like tendencies on many occasions.”
“I met him outside of an event where he approached my friends and I, asking us to go to this party with him and his group,” Amanda said. “We got roped into a conversation with him for a while and he immediately gave off scary/creepy energy. We tried to scare him away by letting him know that we were 18 years old, as he was clearly much, much older, but he used that as a flirting tactic by calling us ‘little girls’ before asking us out, and weird stuff like that.”
A couple weeks later, Amanda was on a date at a restaurant where she said she was seated at a table directly next to Deschanel. “When my date went to the restroom, Deschanel struck up a conversation and made me super uncomfortable by telling me to ‘spin’ to show him and his group of older men my outfit,” she said.
Amanda’s date got the restaurant to move their table, but afterwards, Amanda said, she would “run into [Deschanel] here and there. He would follow me around every time I saw him out and just dead-laser-beam stare at me across the room for hours straight to the point where I would leave places, because it was so strange.”
NYC-based actor and dancer Tracy Sokat, who shared her own experiences with Deschanel in a TikTok video, was left similarly jarred by him. In her video, Sokat—who did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment—says she once considered Deschanel “one of her closest friends,” and that he convinced her to open up to him emotionally and share details of her personal life with him.
“This man knows everything about my trust issues, my past relationships, my family dynamic, my own mental health, and in turn, I thought I knew a lot about him and his personal life,” Sokat said. “Basically, this man lied about his entire identity… We used to make jokes about growing up Catholic and what that was like, and he is literally a rabbi. He’s not Catholic at all. He used to wear a cross around his neck!”
Gemma, too, said Deschanel told her he was Catholic: “I feel like he definitely has some kind of self-hating antisemitic thing, because he actively said that he was Catholic,” she told The Daily Beast. “One of my friends is very blond and has blue eyes. Deschanel wouldn’t stop complimenting this guy and saying how good-looking he was, and then he was like, ‘Oh, he looks a little like a Hitler Youth, in a good way.’”
Since TikTok blew up Deschanel’s spot last month, Aryeh Dodelson has been laying low, the Lakewood resident told The Daily Beast.
“He started hiding already,” they said. “He hasn’t really been around much, and last I heard he moved to the Upper East Side. He still comes to visit his family. They are supportive of him—not his ex, obviously—just as a person. They still care. They didn’t cut him off.”
The extent of Deschanel’s deception isn’t clear. But in the case of at least one of the women he set out to woo, no amount of elaborate fibs or seemingly bogus connections could have helped him; as Gemma told The Daily Beast, she didn’t break up with Deschanel because she’d figured out he was bullshitting her.
“It literally was just that I was not attracted to him.”
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