Sherri Papini Condemns Ex-Husband’s Kidnap Hoax True Crime Doc—But Is Making Her Own Version

When I spoke with Keith Papini in June of 2024, the last thing he wanted to talk about was his kids. His then-wife, Sherri Papini, had famously disappeared during a 2016 jog, then flagged down a passing driver three weeks later, claiming she’d been kidnapped. None of it was true, Keith discovered years later. The mom of two had spent those lost weeks at her ex-boyfriend’s home, then spun a false abduction tale—complete with self-inflicted injuries— after the fact.

After her story slowly unraveled, Sherri was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in 2022 for making false statements to FBI agents (among other charges), catapulting the twisty and shocking case back into the spotlight. By the time Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini, a true crime docuseries based on the case, dropped on Hulu last year, it was clear that Keith had weighed the impact his family’s participation in the show might have on his kids. Ultimately, he said, “I wanted to let the community and my friends and family members know that we’re doing great, the kids are thriving.”

But in a court appearance Friday, Sherri argued that the series had the opposite effect. “For eight years, our family has been followed, stalked, harassed, and bullied by the media,” a court filing reported on by KRCR reads. “I have done my best to stay private to focus on my children and healing from the events that transpired. For many years after my arrest, I was the primary caregiver of our children before serving my time in prison. My children have always been my primary focus.”

Keith filed for divorce from Sherri in 2022, and by the fall of 2023, she had been released from prison. Custody proceedings began soon after that, with Keith requesting full legal and physical custody. While footage in the series depicts the effect Sherri’s disappearance and subsequent claims of trauma related to the hoax event had on their kids, Keith declined to speak with me on the matter, citing the ongoing discussions over custody.

“They know they’re certainly not going to watch the documentary, as I don’t think they’re age-appropriate yet,” Papini told me at the time. “They are just amazing kids. And my goal right now is just make sure they have a happy and healthy life.”

But in the Shasta County Superior Court filing, Sherri says Keith’s participation in the Hulu series amounts to “revisiting the past and reopening old wounds rather than focusing on moving forward—at the expense of our children.” She asked for an official court decision to block the children from watching Perfect Wife, KRCR reports.

It’s unclear if the bombshell revelation in the final few minutes of Perfect Wife came up in Friday’s hearing. In an interview shown in the series, Keith says that he discovered years after the hoax that “Sherri would soak rags of alcohol and put it in a Ziploc bag and … Would tie a string around their neck onto the Ziploc bag so that the fumes would … make them not feel good, so that she could take them to the doctor.”

Keith declined to discuss those claims during our 2024 interview. According to Perfect Wife director Michael Beach Nichols, Keith “had never had any suspicions of any kind of behavior like this until she was no longer in the house,” and said that “it really is a story that the children told Keith,” but that “There’s no reason not to think that that didn’t happen.” Sherri has never faced charges related to those allegations.

It’s also unclear if Sherri Papini’s participation in her own reality series came up in Friday’s hearing. Just a few weeks after Perfect Wife made its debut, Investigation Discovery announced its own series about the case—but this one would tell the tale from Sherri’s perspective, Vanity Fair reported. “While many perspectives have been told, there is one point of view that the world hasn’t heard, and that is from Sherri herself,” ID president Jason Sarlanis told VF via written statement. “Investigation Discovery will present a new side of Sherri Papini’s case—told by her in her own words.”

Why that upcoming series is immune from the wound-reopening that Sherri alleges Perfect Wife causes is also hard to parse, as is what aspect of Sherri’s false abduction case remains to be told. But speaking with Nichols in 2024, he seems well aware that Perfect Wife might have a role in the pair’s custody dispute. People watching the series will be able to measure “the stakes of Sherri potentially gaining shared custody of the children,” Nichols said, which is one of the reasons the Papinis’ kids appear in Perfect Wife. Viewers will have “a connection to the faces of these children that are in danger if Sherri is around them,” Nichols said.

“Keith really wants this series to be his opportunity to have his story documented,” Nichols said in 2024, “because he is so worried that Sherri will be believed, because he believed her for six years. By having his kids involved, it really showed that the stakes are high. This is life or death in some ways.”

According to KRCR, Sherri is “seeking reunification with one child and increased visitation with another.” A date for a decision on the request from Shasta County Judge Kathryn J. Barton has yet to be announced. According to ID, its as-yet-unnamed docuseries about Sherri is set for a 2025 release.