A Madeleine McCann lookalike has broken her silence after last year making sensational claims she was the missing British toddler.
Julia Wendell, 22, revealed she "regrets" making the claims online and received torrents of abuse and death threats.
The Polish woman, who operated under the social media username @IamMadeleineMcCann, even appeared on talk show Dr Phil.
However, after taking a DNA test, the results conclusively revealed Wendell was not McCann.
Julia Wendell claimed she was missing toddler Madeleine McCann
BBC/PA
Wendell has a track record for making spurious claims about being missing people, including claiming the identity of three other girls.
Speaking to the BBC, Wendell insisted she "never meant to hurt anyone - including [the] McCanns", adding: "I really want to know who I am."
The 22-year-old allegedly suffered gaps in her memory following childhood abuse and became suspicious about her upbringing after her parents dismissed questions on whether she was adopted.
She added: "I knew that there will be people who will not believe me or hate me, but I didn't expect that I will get death threats, for example.
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Madeleine McCann went missing in the Algarve in Portugal in 2007PA"I was trying to be strong even when people said, 'you should die.' 'You should be raped.' 'You should be killed.' 'You should be murdered.' 'You shouldn't exist in this world."
Wendell argued she believed she was McCann, who went missing during a family holiday to Portugal in 2007, after later seeing sketches of a potential suspect in the case that bore similarities to her abuser.
She added: "I know [what] my abuser looks like. And I know this is very, very similar to the suspects from [the] Madeleine McCann page."
The 22-year-old stressed she "just wanted to say sorry" to McCann's parents Kate and Gerry "because every person can react in a different way and maybe it brought them more sadness".
Kate and Gerry McCann say they are "never going to give up" on searching for missing MadeleinePAHowever, Wendell's family have also rejected the fantasist's claim, saying: "For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin and step niece. We have memories, we have pictures.
"Julia also has these photos, because she took them from the family home with the birth certificate, as well as numerous hospital discharges.
"We always tried to understand all situations that happened with Julia. Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet... we've seen it all and we've tried to prevent it, explain it, we've asked her to stop."
Wendell's DNA test revealed she was primarily of Polish heritage, with "negligible influence from Lithuania and Romania".
