SMYTH: COURTESY OF JOHNATHAN WALTON.Photographed by Sally PetersonTHE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 80 FEBRUA RY 12, 2020
THE PRODUCER,
THE ‘HEIRESS’ AND
A VERY PERSONAL
QUEST FOR JUSTICEWhen reality veteran Johnathan Walton began to suspect his best friend
— to whom he’d loaned nearly $70,000 — was not the royal she claimed,
he launched an investigation that uncovered dozens of alleged victims:
‘Everything she told us was a lie’ BY KATIE KILKENNYT
he first time Johnathan
Walton, 45, met the
woman who became his
best friend and turned into his
worst enemy, she was offering
help with his building’s pool.
In the spring of 2013, Walton,
a producer for unscripted shows
including American Ninja Warrior
and Shark Tank, and his neigh-
bors at a Bunker Hill apartment
complex in downtown Los
Angeles, lost access to their stun-
ning pool amid a dispute with
another building. When Walton,
an earnest and animated former
TV news reporter, held a meeting
about the incident in his living
room, about 30 people showed up.
Walton hadn’t yet met one
neighbor and attendee, a hand-
some 40-something woman with
jet-black hair and a pixie cut, whocomplex “a couple times” and
won. He had recommended they
start a tenants’ association. As
the group warmed to the idea,
Smyth bantered with neighbors
and laughed at Walton’s jokes.
Almost instantly, she reminded
him of Sally Field’s pro-union
activist character
in 1979’s Norma Rae:
brash, funny and
straightforward. He
liked her.
This was some
time before Smyth, whose full first
name Walton later would learn
was Marianne, convinced him that
she was an Irish heiress who stood
to inherit 5 million euros. In time,
she would also mention that she
was pals with Ashley Judd; show
him a closet full of allegedly thou-
sand-dollar designer shoes; andsoon took charge of
the conversation.
She was dressed in pastel-colored
clothes and shoes that looked
high-end and spoke articulately
in a voice with the slightest trace
of an accent. Her name was Mair
Smyth and she was a luxury travel
agent. Her boyfriend was a promi-
nent real estate lawyer, she said,
and had sued their own apartmentMarianne Smyth told her
alleged victims that she
came from a prominent Irish
family and stood to inherit a
multimillion-euro estate.