The most painful part of being a pet owner is knowing that their beloved furball’s life will probably end before their own. This knowledge can lead people down extreme paths, all in the name of keeping their pets happy and healthy for as long as possible. But even if a pet owner has spent an exorbitant amount of money on CBD products for an allergy-prone rabbit or hired a pet psychic to get to the bottom of a cat’s anxiety, most people probably wouldn’t believe anyone who promised to make their dog immortal. Probably not, but that’s what Sarma Melngailis says happened to her.
The new docuseries Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. tells the story of Melngailis and the rise and fall of her raw food restaurant, NYC’s Pure Food and Wine. A big part of the narrative is the relationship Melngailis had with Anthony Strangis, a man she met online who told her that he could, among other things, make her precious pup, Leon, immortal.
In the series, Melngailis recounts that when she first met Strangis, he quickly recognized how special Leon was to her and realized he could use this attachment to his advantage. Melngailis says that this meant that Strangis gradually convinced her that he was not, in fact, a human, but rather existed in an eternal, ethereal realm that could eventually become their shared “happily ever after,” and that Leon could come, too.
According to Melngailis’ journal entries from that time, Strangis didn’t just promise immortality to Leon, he also promised her a stake in the power, influence and wealth he had gained as a result of passing all the tests he took to become a higher being. All Melngailis needed to do in order to share in the bounty was wire him money to prove her loyalty both to him and the others — “the family” — who could turn Leon immortal.
The kind of intense, psychologically damaging relationship that Melngailis and Strangis had can lead people to believe things that sound, frankly, unbelievable. According to Melngailis, this means that she believed her life — and Leon’s — would be in danger if she didn’t send Strangis money. If Melngailis didn’t prove herself to Strangis, she stood to lose everything. If she did? She would ascend to what Strangis promised was her fated role as queen, where she’d be accompanied by her beloved dog, forever by her side. Although all this might sound like the most transparent lie in the world to many of us (no matter how much we want our pets to live for decades and decades), in the words of Seinfeld’s George Costanza, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
