John McAfee’s relatives had 'no idea' about new Netflix doc that claims tech mogul 'faked' his death
John McAfee's relatives say they had "no idea" that Netflix was making a documentary that claims the antivirus pioneer faked his death.
McAfee is said to have committed suicide in a prison cell last year shortly after a Spanish court ruled that he would be extradited to the US to face tax evasion charges. The tech guru was on the run for years until he was arrested in Spain back in 2020 on behalf of the US government for tax evasion and a fraudulent crypto scheme. McAfee allegedly ended his life at age 75 after the Spanish National Court agreed in June 2021 to extradite him to Tennessee. According to Reuters, his body remains preserved at a Spanish morgue.
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"We had no idea a TV documentary about John was being made," Shelley Uden, McAfee's cousin from Gwent in Wales, told The Sun of the new 'Running with the Devil' documentary. "We have had no approaches from the production company so it has come as a surprise. But I am keen to see it. I am a pensioner and don’t have Netflix but I’ll find a way to watch it. It will be an interesting insight into John’s life and he led a very colorful one. I want to know how he is being portrayed." Uden said McAfee had spent most of his life in the US and that they lost touch "many years ago." She added, "There are not many of his relatives alive today. We are aware the Spanish authorities ruled his death was by suicide. His mum and my dad were sister and brother so I’m his cousin, and I have another brother living in Gloucestershire."
Uden previously told the newspaper that she was "very sad" to learn of her cousin's sudden demise. "If he did take his own life, we may never know why," she said at the time. However, McAfee's ex-girlfriend, Samantha Herrera, has claimed he may still be alive. Speaking to documentary producers, she said she received a phone call from the elusive tech mogul. “I don’t know if I should say, but two weeks ago, after his death, I got a call from Texas," she said. "'It’s me, John. I paid off people to pretend that I am dead, but I am not dead,'" Herrera said McAfee told her, adding that “there are only three persons in this world that know I’m still alive." She claims he then asked her to run away with him.
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Speaking to Esquire about Herrera's claims, the documentary's director Charlie Russell said, “I don’t know what I think and I don’t think she does. She says it, then she looks at the camera, and I can’t work out whether she thinks it’s real or not. She’s someone who was very angry at John. He promised them a life together and I think they were genuinely in love, despite the huge age difference, I think he offered her a real different future, then he literally ditched her at the border and I think that’s very painful for her and it’s taken her years to get over that.”
Meanwhile, Dov Freedman, the co-founder of production company Curious Films, told Deadline that 'Running with the Devil' has been "10 years in the making." Freedman, who serves as the executive producer of the project, told the outlet that the film is a “stranger-than-fiction story like no other, about a powerful man who lived his real life like it was a high-octane Hollywood movie.”