Julia Wandelt, a young woman from Poland who has been vocal about her belief that she could be Madeleine McCann, has revealed that she has reached Kate and Gerry McCann - and spoken to both of them on the phone.
Julia, who shares a similar rare eye condition coloboma to Maddie, spoke about her situation on the Break the Ice podcast, explaining: "I called Kate's number, I called and once Kate answered the call and she said only 'hello' and she hung up when I asked her if she could do the [DNA] test with me.
"And the second time I called her, Gerry answered the call, he was kind in the beginning and then when he heard my voice, he said that I called the wrong number. The main question I have here is why have they not still reported me if it's annoying for them, if they think that I'm destroying their names or the name of Madeleine or their family? Why have they not reported me to the police? Why have they never told me to stop?"
She also revealed that she has reached out to a friend of the McCanns who also hasn't blocked her number, asking: "Why does he still read my messages I sent to him. Why did he speak with me three minutes and he sounded like he was so sad and sorry?"
Julia, who made headlines with her initial claims back in 2023 before a DNA test proved that she was almost 100 percent Polish with some Lithuanian and Russian ancestry, claims that she can remember being taken and put in a car by a "slim and tanned" man.
Her family released a statement at the time which read: "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. We always tried to understand all the situations that happened with Julia."
© Miguel VillagranIn January 2024, Julia also took part in an interview where she admitted that she regretted claiming to be Maddie online, and that she had received a huge backlash of social media abuse following her claims.
She said: "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. It was something that I don't understand."
© GettyMadeleine McCann is still a missing person after she disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz aged just three back in 2007. While there hasn't been any official arrests in the case, German authorities named Christian Brueckner as their prime suspect back in 2022, and are continuing to investigate the case.
