NBA Twitter — and of course, Kevin Durant — is obsessed with an alleged catfish mystery involving a popular podcaster.
In a developing story that still has many unanswered questions, Vivian Flores — a Lakers podcast host who goes by “@butterfly_424” on Twitter — is at the center of catfish allegations, following a claim that she went missing on Sunday.
The situation began when Lakers fan and “The Laker Point” podcast co-host Josh Toussaint announced on Twitter that Flores was missing in the Los Angeles area. He urged to help locate the Santa Monica native, who he said is currently receiving treatment for Leukemia.
Toussaint later tweeted screen-grabs of alleged messages from Flores’ sister Aly, which came from Vivian’s Instagram account, informing him that she had gone missing. Toussaint said he received permission from Flores’ sister to spread the word about her supposed disappearance.
Toussaint said he first interacted with Flores, via Instagram direct message, in February 2020, following Kobe Bryant’s public memorial at Staples Center. He said he’s never met or seen Flores in person, and when they worked together she wouldn’t communicate via FaceTime or video because of her “self-esteem” — all “red flags” of a catfish, according to Twitter critics.
Flores, who has nearly 16k followers on Twitter, has become somewhat of a known figure among Lakers fans on social media. Therefore, it didn’t come as a surprise to many when Ice Cube’s son, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Lakers forward Markieff Morris retweeted Toussaint’s message to try and help raise awareness about his missing friend.
Toussaint even claimed, according to multiple outlets, that the Los Angeles Lakers reached out to him on Twitter to help find Flores.
On Monday, Toussaint announced on Twitter that Flores was found safe and said he was not involved in her discovery.
Toussaint has since deleted his initial plea for help to find Flores due to accusations that he’s behind her account, which many critics believe could be a longtime cat-fishing scheme. He has since denied having anything to do with Flores’ Twitter account.
In a series of tweets since Flores was found, Toussaint claims he was “duped” by Flores, who he feels “betrayed” by after he thought they had become close.
Toussaint further explained his side of the situation in a seven-minute video on Twitter, shared by his friend Waleed Khan.
An alleged Photoshop of Vivian Flores at a Lakers game and a grab of video she posted and quickly deleted on April 20, 2021 Twitter“I’m definitely not Vivian even though some people won’t believe me, but I just got duped like a lot of people because she was close to a lot of people on Twitter,” Toussaint said in the video. “I got the screenshots to prove it in my DMs and text messages although one of her phone numbers isn’t real.”
Toussaint also claimed that Flores’ sister was using a fake phone number to communicate with him..
How is Durant involved?
While the social media-happy forward has no direct ties to the situation, he was part of a conversation about Flores during a recent Twitter Spaces session.
During the audio conversation, a Twitter user by the name of “Big Kings,” whose handle is “ItsKingsBruh,” discussed his apparent online relationship with Flores — though, in the sporadic audio clips shared online, Durant doesn’t mention Flores’ name.
Kings claimed that he recently cut ties with Flores after he suspected she was a catfish. Kings, like Toussaint, noted that Flores wouldn’t communicate via video.
Meanwhile, Durant, who was simply trying to understand the alleged catfish situation, began asking Kings questions such as: “So, you’re saying he [Kings] linked up with a bot?” and “Big Kings got catfish-ed for how long by another guy?”
Past tweets show Kings interacting with Flores, sending heart emojis, among others. Following the drama, Kings has been re-sharing jokes about the situation on Twitter.
Fans on Twitter have pointed out that Flores’ social media images appear distorted, photoshopped and edited, further enhancing the catfish theory.
What does Flores have to say?
Flores, for her part, briefly reemerged with a short video on Twitter thanking those who still believed in her before deleting her account all together.
“Y’all be on here, hearing the side of the story of one guy and then automatically assume he is right about everything. I have people on here that can verify who I am. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” Flores tweeted on Monday, confirming her disappearance.
“As for me going missing, yes it happened. I passed out from my treatment”.
Flores continued, “So Kingsley want to have his say and I shouldn’t have mine, y’all want to assume everything he said is true go on but I promise on God if I have to talk about sh-t. People gonna listen too.”
In a separate tweet, Flores denied that Toussaint is behind her Twitter account..
Episodes of “The Laker Point” podcast with Toussaint and Flores remain online. is there a real Vivian, though? That question is still very much a mystery.
