Claim:   A woman discovers on a call-in radio show that her boyfriend is married.

Status:   True.

Origins:   If anything could be worse than finding out that your lover has been cheating on you, it would be for such a discovery to take place in front of a large audience — an audience to whom you'd just affirmed your confidence in your lover's fidelity. Even worse would be if you were the discovered cheater, and the revelation of your unfaithfulness occurred in front of an eavesdropping public as well.

Both those scenarios are precisely what happened to two Minnesota residents named Kim and Greg on Andy Savage's radio program (aired on the now-defunct Minneapolis station KEGE 93.7, better known as The Edge) in 1996.

A 25-year-old woman named Kim phoned in to take part in a scheme called "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not," in which callers who suspected their lovers of fooling around behind their backs gave Savage contact information, and he employed various ruses to try to catch out the straying sweethearts. Kim had been going out with a man named Greg for about a year, she said. Since Greg lived in Duluth, which was quite a distance away (over 150 miles) from Kim's home near Minneapolis, they saw each other only on weekends. Alarm bells should have been going off already, but Kim swore she had "absolutely no reason" to suspect Greg had been messing around on her. "I know he loves me," she told Savage quite confidently. ("Then this is going to be boring," Savage quipped in reply.)

Nonetheless, Savage plunged ahead with the scheme. He called Greg in Duluth and told him that his business card had been picked out of a fishbowl at a local business establishment, entitling him to one dozen free roses. (Greg didn't find this unusual, since he admitted he came out to Minneapolis every weekend "on business.") And where would Greg like the flowers sent? "To my wife, Cindy," he replied.

"What?" inquired the heartbroken Kim. "Cindy? To your wife, Cindy? Your wife, Cindy?"

Greg, taken aback, could only respond "Aw, Jesus ..." before Savage provided him with the now superfluous bit of information that his girlfriend was on the line. Greg fumbled for a bit as Kim questioned him about his wife, then finally tried the old "I was only kidding" dodge.

It didn't work. A teary-eyed Kim called him a "dick" and hung up, and Greg did the same after informing Savage he was a "son of a bitch."

Yes, this was the real thing and not a staged stunt, according to Andy Savage, now on the air with KNDD 107.7 in Seattle. It was an uncomfortable performance, both for the participants and for the audience. If you can overcome your squeamishness, listen for yourself through the link below.

Additional information:

"He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" (Andy Savage — KEGE 93.7-FM, Minneapolis)

Last updated:   20 August 2006

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