Abuse at Home, and Why Shame Has to Change Sides

Friends, when the Ulmen-Fernandes story broke in Germany, a lot of us probably couldn’t believe our eyes and ears. It’s about sexual violence. About very serious allegations of sexual violence. And in this case, it allegedly happened within her own four walls, in her most familiar circle, started by the person she loved and trusted.

The Fernandes case is one that, we can already tell, will stay with us for a long time. There’s a long way to fall here. A successful, hyped celebrity, a great love with a TV host and actress who is just as successful. SHE even makes TV programs about the deepfake porn of her that was circulating, about how she was hunting for the people behind it. And in the end it comes out that it was apparently her own husband. The father of their daughter.

I was sitting in my car, waiting, when the reel popped up on the Instagram account of Der Spiegel, a major German news magazine. It was about their research into the case. I was just about to head to a grief support session. Then Katharina texted me: “Oh my God… Look at Collien Ulmen-Fernandes’s profile. Right now.”

I think many of us will remember exactly where we were when we heard about this alleged crime*, something an ordinary brain simply can’t wrap itself around. “Unbelievable” was the word we read most in the first five hours after it was published. We shared the Spiegel investigation in our Instagram stories, too, and the reactions were mostly shock and disbelief.

One reader even wrote to us that she had seen the man who’s now being accused at an amusement park with his daughter a few years ago. That makes it feel even closer. And even harder to believe. Especially when you hear that he didn’t just allegedly produce deepfake porn of his wife. He’s also accused of hitting her and of setting up fake accounts, using them to flirt with men in her name and later sending very real-looking pornographic images of her.

I once got to interview Collien myself as a journalist. Even then, we talked about the deepfakes of her that were out there online, though she was still in the dark about who was behind them. She was a woman I fell into conversation with easily, one who said she likes a beer and who writes children’s books about equality for boys and girls. (By the way, how about buying that book in huge numbers right now? As a show of solidarity and support for her courage in going public?)

I’m currently reading “A Hymn to Life: Shame Must Change Sides” by Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband drugged her at night for decades and “offered” her to strangers to rape. I’ve also read her daughter’s book. I’ve followed the revelations in the Epstein files, and I wonder how we’re not all dizzy from shaking our heads in disbelief.

Making Sexual Violence Public

Collien herself says it felt like being told someone had died when her ex-husband confessed to her on Christmas Day 2024 that he was behind the fake accounts. She reacted as if in shock. And now she’s stepping out of helplessness and into action. She filed a report against him, and she’s going public. And the public? Is responding with thousands of touching messages of solidarity.

And that, friends, is something we can hopefully take away from this horrific story. That shame has to change sides. That we get loud about sexual violence, about deepfakes and crimes committed online. That survivors don’t have to be left on their own with this, that they can step forward when they’ve been wronged. It takes so much courage, but a soft net of support is allowed to wrap around them!

I wish Collien, her daughter, and everyone directly or indirectly affected by sexual and domestic violence a giant hammock of honest, human support to catch them. And the fullest justice the law allows, along with a good process of working through it all, so that trust can come back. All the strength in the world to you!

And to everyone else: Keep your eyes and ears open and help when help is needed. Together, we have to figure out how to make sure no woman anywhere in the world has to go through something like this in the future. We need prevention programs, therapy spots, attention. Structures have to be broken open, and these topics can’t keep being swept under the rug. We need more safety online, more funding for prosecution, and oh… so much more. I’d love to start the discussion here: What do you think matters most?

*Until there’s a conviction, the presumption of innocence applies, though the facts look pretty damning