For 6 years, Spencer thought he was in a relationship with Katy Perry. Then he met Harriet.

We’ve all had fantasies about dating our favourite pop star or Hollywood actor.

But for Spencer Morrill, that fantasy became a reality – at least, he thought it had – when he met US pop singer Katy Perry online.

For six years, Morrill was “100 per cent confident” he was in a relationship with the star. The ‘couple’ exchanged texts, emails and phone calls; Morrill even purchased an engagement ring, which cost him much of his savings.

Dating translate. Post continues after video.

In a classic episode of MTV series Catfish, Morrill explained:

“It was an immediate connection. A million ‘I love yous’ back and forth. It was pretty cool. I would like to meet face to face and see if there’s a future here.

“She’s awesome. Katy’s funnier than I am, she’s smarter than I am. I don’t know how many people give her credit for that, but she’s very intelligent. Katy’s full of life, huge heart.”

It didn’t even seem to bother Morrill that during their ‘relationship’, Perry was married to comedian Russell Brand, and then was dating actor Orlando Bloom.

Through their investigations, however, hosts Nev Schulman and Max Joseph uncovered that the person Morrill believed to be Perry was in fact a woman named Harriet from Gloucester.

"We've found the person you've been talking to beyond really any shred of doubt, and you still want to believe the thing that makes you happier," Nev tells Morrill. "You need to know that you're not talking to Katy Perry."

In the episode, the woman offers Morrill an apology for stringing him along all this time.

"I just got to a point to where I couldn’t imagine like not talking to you," she explained. "I’ve been through some tough times throughout the time we’ve been talking the past six years. Like my dad died two years ago... I’m like genuinely sorry. I can’t change what I did, but I understand that it was really wrong."

Mamamia’s daily news podcast The Quicky speaks to the ABC journalist who broke the story about catfish Lydia Abdelmalek. Post continues after audio.

At first, seemed to come to terms with the fact he wasn’t actually dating Katy Perry.

But, when Nev and Max caught up with Spencer months later, he admitted he was still emailing the fake Perry e-mail address.

Katy Perry expressed sadness over what went down.

"You know, like, my heart goes out to [Morrill] actually because anybody that's been fooled like that or just, you know, people have dreams, and people live in different parts of world where not everything is always so accessible...

"I felt bad for him, and so I didn't really like to indulge in that. Someone sent me a link [to the story] and I didn't actually read through it because I just think it's really unfortunate and very sad."