49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel apparently reveals he was catfished

While trying to defend 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy from criticism this week, Deebo Samuel unintentionally revealed that he’s apparently been the victim of a catfishing prank.

Following the Niners’ 33-19 loss to the Ravens on Monday, Samuel made his weekly appearance on “Up and Adams” and called out quarterback Cam Newton for blowing up the receiver’s phone. Newton, who set off a week of online football discourse after he called Brock Purdy a “game manager,” posted three monocle emojis on X, formerly known as Twitter, as Purdy struggled during the Christmas game.

“You was a fan like two weeks ago,” Samuel said. “That’s mad crazy. You wanted me on your podcast after talking about my quarterback, which is funny to me.”

Newton responded to the comments with a video on X to reveal that he doesn’t actually have Samuel’s number. 

“Whoever calling you, that ain’t my phone calling you,” Newton said. The former MVP added he even double-checked to see if he reached out to the Niners player because Samuel’s statement was so “believable.”

After the 49ers went through their walkthroughs on Wednesday, Samuel appeared to come through with the receipts of Newton texting him. Sure enough, there were screenshots of an unsaved number using Newton’s famous font asking the Niners receiver to be “on the pod in the next few weeks.” Adding to the validity is that the texts came from the 704 area code — which is primarily used for numbers from Charlotte, where Newton used to star for the Panthers.

However, a glance at Samuel’s account on X will show that the post with those screenshots has been deleted. The reason for that, as it turns out, is that Newton was right: Whoever was texting and calling Samuel wasn’t the former Panthers quarterback. 

This should have been clear given that whoever was texting the Niners player swapped off the Newton font after Monday and just started insulting Samuel, which included a swipe at what he said on Adams’ show. However, it became more clear when a Twitter account posted evidence that Samuel had been pranked.

In a post captioned “LMFAOOOO,” user MJRlCE posted a screenshot of the texts Samuel posted earlier, but from the perspective of the fake Newton. The user also posted a video of a trembling teenager allegedly speaking with Samuel on the phone.

Newton has not commented on these allegations, but he did like the post showing that Samuel was catfished. Meanwhile, the Niners receiver went with the tried-and-true approach of deflecting from an embarrassing moment and shared a lovely photo of himself and his kid.