Many Provo Tinder users swiped right all weekend as news spread that David Archuleta had created a Tinder account.
Their swipes were in vain, as the account appeared to be an invention of some Provo pranksters. The people behind this counterfeit account cannot be revealed, but personal testimonies confirmed the Tinder profile never belonged to the Utah — and worldwide — celebrity.
Taylor Whitlock, a freshman at BYU, posted a tweet with some reservations about the account. “So my roommate just matched with David Archuleta on Tinder. #mightbefake #mightbereal,” Whitlock tweeted.
Laura Payne, a BYU student from Calgary, Alberta, studying accounting, was also hopeful. “Just downloaded Tinder so I can match with David Archuleta,” Payne said.
Other women also fell victim to this joke, and some even planned to meet with Archuleta in real life. Clara Goodwin, a junior studying broadcast journalism, asked for fake David’s Snapchat account so she could verify he was real.
“He asked me to go to the corn maze with him, and that’s when I was sketched out,” Goodwin said. She said Archuleta was beginning to say things the normal Archuleta probably wouldn’t say.
“He said, ‘You can hold me close at the corn maze if you get scared,’ and that’s when I kind of called him out,” Goodwin said. After Goodwin asked for his Snapchat account, fake David deleted her from his matches.
The people behind the fake account erased it Sunday night, hoping to avoid any issues from Archuleta himself or from swindled Tinderellas.
“It’s like that girl who told all the boys to go to Yogurtland. But it’s whatever. There’s still hope for Jef Holm,” Goodwin said.
