This post is third in a series (you can find the first post and the table of contents here, and the second post here) about the multimillion-dollar Internet diet marketing phenomenon that is Kimkins.com — and its controversial diet guru, a mysterious woman known to most people only as “Kimmer.” My wife, Catherine MacDonald, was a founding partner of the Kimkins.com startup, and I’m sharing the story of this business venture as a case study in business partnerships.
SEPTEMBER 2007 UPDATE: We now have real pictures of Kimmer. As many people suspected, she is a morbidly obese woman — not the svelte 118-pound diet success she has claimed to be. See the pictures here: Kimmer surveillance picture, Kimmer at the Kimkins.com mail box, more surveillance Kimmer photos.
In 1993 — almost 15 years ago — New Yorker published what has become one of its most famous cartoons. One dog, sitting at a computer keyboard, says to another dog, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
This post is about the topic that is at the root of the raging Kimkins/Kimmer controversy. Who is Kimmer? Did she really lose 200 pounds and is she really slim now? Why are there only four known “after” pictures and why do they all look different?
This is also about the way that the Internet has changed how people do business. My wife Catherine founded Kimkins.com with a woman she had never met before, and has never met to this day. This is not unusual — in the information age, people routinely enter into contracts with one another without meeting and sometimes without even talking on the telephone.
Kimmer has always been secretive and evasive about her personal information and photographs. As a private individual posting at the LowCarbFriends.com boards, it was reasonable for her to defend her right to privacy. However, she now uses her story and what she claims are her photos to market a million-dollar weight loss business. There are a disturbing number of unanswered questions and inconsistencies, and a growing number of consumers and dieters are demanding the truth.
Although the recent Woman’s World cover article names the creator/owner of Kimkins.com as “Kim Drake,” (a pseudonym Kimmer had once told Catherine to use for publicity purposes) we’re quite certain that the real name of the woman known as Kimmer is Heidi Kimberly Diaz:
- Heidi Diaz is the name Kimmer gave Catherine and the name she used on their Kimkins.com partnership contract.
- Heidi Diaz is the name that was on the PayPal account to which Kimmer’s share of the website profits were deposited.
- Heidi Diaz is the telephone directory name associated with the phone number Kimmer used for telephone calls with Catherine and has listed on press releases — (951) 808-0482. USSearch.com databases associate the name Heidi Kimberly Diaz, age 49, with the telephone number and telephone directory address.
The pictures below show one of Kimmer’s “before” pictures on the left and a picture on a Classmates.com profile under the name Heidi (Miller) Diaz. They are clearly the same woman on the same day:
In the five or so years that Kimmer has been discussing her weight loss success and acting as a role model and mentor, she has published only two “before” pictures and four “after” photographs. The after pictures are remarkably different from one another:
The second photo is Kimmer’s original LowCarbFriends.com “after” photo (which she was still using at the launch of Kimkins.com). Kimmer came up with the third photo about a month after the Kimkins.com launch after much pleading for recent after pictures from Kimkins.com members. The final picture on the right is a recent picture from the Woman’s World article, and it is now the only “after” photo on the Kimkins.com site. Bizarrely, a Kimmer before and after combo with an “after” of a heavily-airbrushed woman in a leopardskin blouse (I am unable to post the picture here because of copyright issues) was also published in the same Woman’s World article.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody who has interacted with Kimmer online claims to have met her in person. Whenever Kimkins.com members have requested seminars or get-togethers, Kimmer has declined. There is a Kimkins sea cruise being planned for February 2008, but no commitment that Kimmer will be onboard. This is odd behavior for a woman who trades on her personality and life experience to provide motivation to her customers.
Questions have been raised about well-known low carb diet blogger Jimmy Moore’s interview of Kimmer — did he interview Kimmer in person? The answer is no. This interview was arranged by Catherine, via email, and conducted between Jimmy and Kimmer also by email. Jimmy sent his questions to Catherine, who forwarded them to Kimmer, and Kimmer then emailed the answers back to Jimmy. This interview fueled Jimmy’s successful affiliate relationship with Kimkins.com which is still ongoing. It’s worth noting that the old Kimmer “after” picture (seated black blouse shot) Jimmy used to have on his site has entirely disappeared, replaced by the red dress “after” shot.
As I write this, the “who is Kimmer?” question is being hotly debated on several diet message boards including LowCarbFriends.com. There are a number of people who are aware of Heidi K. Diaz’s address, contact information, and other personal details, and I suspect that investigative journalism or private investigation will soon bring about the disclosure of new information about her identity and the authenticity of her weight loss claims. On the Internet in 2007, it’s no longer possible to hide behind a monitor like the New Yorker cartoon dog.
UPDATE: Jimmy Moore confirms that his Kimmer interview was conducted in email and announces an upcoming podcast telephone interview. Once again, “Kimmer” declines a personal appearance.
Next: Kimkins.com Part IV - The Kimkins.com Early Days
Yesterday, Catherine wrote to Women’s World seeking their comment on the Kimkins/Kimmer controversy, and asking what fact checking they did, if any, about “Kim Drake” (aka Kimmer/Heidi Diaz) and her weight loss claims when they were writing their recent cover article.
Today, she received an email from the chief senior editor of Woman’s World herself, Amanda Barbour. Disappointingly, Ms. Barbour’s email contained no comment whatsoever on the substantive issues raised in my series — just a cease and desist letter demanding that I stop using the thumbnail-sized image of the Woman’s World cover of the issue in question. This, in my opinion, is a bully tactic — the cover thumbnail is obviously fair use.
