The second series of Love Cheats opens with a case so hideous it has been taken to parliament. DJ Liv Nervo, who thought she had found the perfect partner in wealthy businessman Matthew, discovered he was leading a triple life, and her story has since become a rallying point against reproductive coercion, with Labour MP Natalie Fleet raising the issue in parliament and naming Liv directly.
A whirlwind romance built on lies
Liv Nervo, a model turned DJ, had built an enviable career travelling the world with her sister and musical collaborator, Mim. Before meeting Matthew, her life was already fantastic, she says, and she wasn't looking for a man to complete it. Their paths crossed when she played a private party on Richard Branson's Necker Island. "I thought I had found the best guy in the world," she recalls. "But it was all a lie."
Matthew was a successful businessman who had made his fortune selling honey, and he was desperate to have a family with Liv. Mim was equally taken in by her sister's devoted new partner. "[Liv] used to date men with a briefcase," Mim clarifies. "I would never date a man with a briefcase!"
The investigation and its shocking findings
The case is intriguing because Matthew was actually wealthy, and his stories of business success and a billionaire mother back in New Zealand were true. Everything else, however, was fiction. Once Liv became pregnant, he grew angry and withdrawn, even skipping a gender-reveal party in her native Australia. Liv's mother, Flaviana, was so concerned that she hired a private investigator to trail him.
Despite being heavily pregnant and learning some of the worst news imaginable about the baby's father, Liv had the presence of mind to record Matthew on her phone as she confronted him. The audio is wild. He wasn't leading a double life, Liv explains, "it was a triple life … I felt totally violated – mind, body and soul." She believes she was deceived into having a child without knowing all the facts, raising questions about informed consent.
Beyond entertainment: activism and legal action
It's probably not a coincidence that producers placed Liv's story at the start of the series. Beyond pursuing legal action against Matthew, she has become an outspoken voice against reproductive coercion, working with the Good Law Project. The series shows Labour MP Natalie Fleet raising the issue in parliament, mentioning Liv by name. It is interesting and enraging, but it also feels bigger than the show itself, as if we only scratch the surface of Liv's activism.
Other cases in the series include Fiona Mulkerrins-Dixon from Exeter, who was deceived by former partner Ben Millin. Millin told her a dead father was actually alive, a dead sister had never existed, and he had a heart condition that could kill him at any moment. DC Claire Morgan of Avon and Somerset police described it as "a massive web of lies and deceit" that saw him extract huge amounts of money from different women. Fiona once thought an incommunicado Ben must be in a ditch, only to find he was in prison.
A warning for other victims
Love Cheats rarely elevates the true-crime genre, and it uses some shaky AI-generated face renderings and homes that look like they're made of Lego, as is in vogue in 2026. However, it gives a voice to people desperate to tell their stories – partly for catharsis, but also to warn others about how easy it is to be conned by people who aren't so much love cheats as life cheats.
Ben Millin was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 34 months in prison but served just five. Fiona says it was so much more than financial crime and something that will "sit with me for ever." Natalie, conned by her former partner Stewart, asks: "How do you trust people? How do you let people in? How do you move on?" Michelle, swindled by the same man, had some debts wiped but is still repaying more than £6,000. While primarily intended as entertainment, if the series can stop these grifters – or others – in their tracks, it will have done a multitude of good.
