Cutting Edge: The 9/11 Faker Reveals How Tania Head’s Heartbreaking 9/11 Story Turned Out To Be A Lie
12 September 2008, 1:25 PM. By Daniel Mauser
Tania Head’s story of courage during the attack on the World Trade Center seven years ago, her role in the “World Trade Centre Survivors’ Network,” and the fact that the native Spaniard had been described as one of only 19 people to have survived above the point of impact on the South Tower made her a symbol of hope during an extremely difficult time. Except for the fact that she’s kind of a heinous liar. Adrian Gatton, the man behind Cutting Edge: The 9/11 Faker, a new documentary on Tania’s stories, describes the woman behind the lies. Because you can put lipstick on a pig, but you can’t lead it to water. Or something:
Tania wasn’t who she said she was. And on the day of the attacks she wasn’t even in New York; she was thousands of miles away in Spain, sitting down to lectures at a business school in Barcelona, where she was completing a masters in business administration at one of Europe’s most prestigious - and expensive - [Ed. note: So?] business schools.
Her fellow students went on to work in industry, but in 2003, Tania Head, a member of one of Barcelona’s richest families, flew to New York to adopt her carefully studied persona as a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Apparently Tania contacted the “World Trade Centre Survivors’ Network,” which was created by actual survivors, with fabricated stories of her heroism during the attack. She claimed to have been on the 78th floor when the South Tower was struck but had managed to escape and rescue a few others. The group believed her accounts and the media gobbled it up:
Unlike many survivors, Tania was relatively explicit about what she saw on 9/11: ‘I looked around, it was like a horror movie, people were mounted on each other, the smell of burnt skin and people’s insides was gagging.
‘I kept thinking about my fiancé, about our wedding, I wanted to wear that white dress and swear my love for him. Something gave me the strength to get up. I believe today that it was my fiancé on his way to heaven.’
Fellow survivors were amazed by her capacity to cope and also with her go-getting attitude to giving survivors a voice. Some felt ashamed they could not match her energy.
Gatton explains that suspicions revolving around her claims grew, but remained unspoken, over the extent of her wounds (she claimed one arm was charred due to a fuel burn), inconsistencies in her story (she referred the “love her life,” Dave — a man who really had died in the North Tower — alternately as her husband and her fiancé):
Eventually, her story became so widely reported that the New York Times wanted to interview her. When she avoided them they grew suspicious. Last year she was exposed in a front-page story by the paper.
Tania had not been in New York on 9/11 at all. Her real name is Alicia Esteve Head. She did not work for an investment bank as she claimed, but had been attending classes in Barcelona.
She was a serial liar, whose arm injury - depending on which of her stories you believe - may have been from a car or a riding accident. Or it may have been a disabling birth defect.
The family of the man to whom she claimed to be deeply in love with and mourning over said they had never heard of Tania and there was no record of her employment in the World Trade Center. As her story unraveled completely, people began to question why a person would take advantage of so many people’s need for some form of a cathartic, public outpouring of grief and their willingness to name somebody, anybody, a “hero” at a time when they felt attacked by what was to be literally described as “forces of evil.”
Tania presented a comic book hero of sorts. An “everywoman,” nondescript in every aspect, rises to the role of outspoken protector of the disadvantaged during a time of need. Gatton’s account of her life culminates in trying to figure out why an ordinary woman would attempt to paint herself as extraordinary so deceitfully:
I did once see Tania, on a chilly New York evening. I was taking a look at her apartment block near Central Park, when suddenly she emerged. She was in the company of an elderly-looking woman with whom she boarded a bus and travelled to a nearby pizza parlour.
Her clothes were unremarkable, she struck me as nondescript and underwhelming. This matched what I later heard, few people - even though they had been with her many times - could remember anything distinctive about her: her lipstick, her clothes. It was as if Tania Head was her story. Without that, there was little left.
Gatton’s documentary, Cutting Edge: The 9/11 Faker premiered on Britain’s Channel 4. Here’s a clip:
The fantasist of 9/11: The story of Tania Head’s escape from the Twin Towers captivated America and made her a heroine among survivors… Just one problem - she wasn’t even there that day [Daily Mail]
In a 9/11 Survival Tale, the Pieces Just Don’t Fit [NY Times]
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Apparently the 9/11 Survivor’s Network received an email from an account out of Spain saying she had comitted suicide, but then again it might just be another lie to get people to feel sorry for her.
dispicable.
Sad, sad, and sad. The extreme things that people are willing to go through do to get a little bit of acceptance in this world is beyond me…
this lady is sad.
some people do some dumbass shit to get their 15 minutes of fame.
Hello.
I watched the TV documentary at home in England, about Tanya Head and i was left totally speachless, by her cold, feelling, callousness. She would have carved out a good career with the nazi party if she’d been around then, i’m sure. Very well done to the press who exposed her to the world
How can you feel sorry for this dispicable woman. She was a symbol of hope for the survivors and their loved ones. One can not begin to calculate the damage that this woman has achieved and suicide! more like another ploy to get people to feel sorry for her.
Thank you
I really do think that this is just one of many who really do believe that they were there that unfateful day. There is really a name out there for this disease, but i just can’t remember right now what it is. But netherless, it is just so appalling to have someone gain sympathy from the world from something this tragic.
I always say “what goes around, comes around”.
I pity this woman. I have no sympathy for her, just empathy.
Tania Head’s actions greatly benefitted the survivors’ group of 9/11, people who desperately needed help, recognition, and closure. She did not receive any material gain from her story, and supposedly didn’t break any U.S. laws. Moreover, her ability to sustain that level of deception through the creation of a wholly convincing narrative is quite remarkable. That her psychology compels her to go to such extreme measures to satisfy some personal need is indeed a source of concern. However, to simply condemn her as a lying, immoral person out on some publicity stunt, feeding off the tragedy of others, is not a thoughtful response to this complex story. We don’t know if she simply used this tragedy in a detached way, if she was moved by it, or if she was completely overtaken by it. We don’t even know that she didn’t confuse her imagined events with reality. Without more information, Tania Head remains a compelling mystery, deserving of admiration, sympathy, and scorn. Ultimately, she betrayed those who truly suffered a loss, but even in that betrayal she heightened the reality of what they experienced.
Hey Andy, I have to disagree with you. I cant imagine a single thing about Tania Head that deserves admiration. Mental illness is a real and true disease, but that in NO WAY justifies what she did. And I personally have no sympathy to someone who so willingly caused others pain, keep the insane locked up where they belong!!!
Throughout history, there have been a great number of mentally ill people who have nevertheless done things that are brilliant, artistic, and yes, admirable. Similarly, one can admire a “criminal mastermind” without subscribing to his or her morality. I am glad you are able to see the situation in such black and white terms, though. No doubt it is this outlook which allows you to proclaim that the “insane” should be “locked up where they belong” while at the same time admitting mental illness is a disease. Should we throw them in with the lepers?
I am just shocked on how this person or anyone can make such lies. Its sad enough that the real survivors have not given much to speak out and make themselves known. Blessing to those real survivors and hope this “Tania Head” person find peace in her mind & may be forgiven for using a sad tragedy for personal gain. Although is not a crime; she should be seaking mental help.
what a fat piece of shit. She is a hug fat fuck. How could you lie about something like this? I hope a bird shits of her head and then while wiping the shit off she gets hit by a car. Stay in your own country fat ass.