Is 'Free Use Mom' Based On A True Story?

Five years ago, Tiffany Perkins believed her boyfriend would love her forever. Certain of their future, she abandoned the baby from a one-night stand on billionaire Oscar Vance’s doorstep and ran away with the man she trusted. Five years later, that trust is shattered. Her boyfriend cheats on her, throws her out, and leaves her burdened with a thirty-million-dollar loan she took to build his fashion brand. Homeless and desperate, Tiffany returns to her family home, only to face her grandfather’s harsh ultimatum. Obsessed with patriarchy and preserving the family business, he refuses to forgive her unless she brings home a wealthy husband. With no other choice, Tiffany turned to a fake partner agency to help find her match. She soon lands a mysterious “wife-for-hire” offer that said she must pretend to be the mother of a five-year-old child to ruin an exclusive event, and in return, the man will be her fake husband for a month. But when Tiffany arrives, she is stunned to discover that the man who hired her is the billionaire Oscar Vance… and the little boy she is meant to pretend as his mother is actually the son she abandoned five years ago. Worse still, the event she is meant to destroy is Oscar Vance's engagement to her own sister!

My mom believed in one thing above all else: being number one. To achieve that, she created a strict daily schedule and even developed a monitoring app that required us to submit reports every day. Anyone who failed to rank first according to the app's evaluation would be tied to a chair and severely punished. No matter how difficult the task was, my younger brother, Jason Hunt, could always complete it and receive a perfect score. Even when he actually ranked last, the monitoring software would still display him in first place. As for me, a single misspelled word was enough to trigger a failing warning from the app, followed immediately by my mom's harsh punishment. At first, I tried to explain. Later, I stayed silent. In the end, I could only kneel and beg. My mom remained unmoved. "Trash doesn't deserve sympathy," she said coldly. "You'll thank me when you become successful in the future." On the first day of the New Year, my mom took Jason out to visit our relatives and exchange greetings. I, meanwhile, was burning with a high fever and could not even finish the day's assignments. Ignoring my illness, my mom dragged me into a bathtub filled with ice. "If you're trying to escape studying, you don't deserve to live," she said. "Pretending to be sick? If you've got the guts, then just die already." She forced my head underwater and raised a rod, smashing it against my skull again and again. I begged desperately for mercy, but it was futile. My mom left with Jason, and I curled up alone on the floor. She was right. Only those who work hard deserve to live.

Ever since my little brother died of a sudden high fever and Mom started spending all her time with Matthew Hunt, I started cutting her out of our family photos. One day, Dad got a call from my teacher. She overheard me saying I lost my mom, and I wanted to borrow my classmate's mom instead. Dad paused for a moment, then didn't correct me. "Yeah," he said quietly. "She passed away early." At the school's parent-child sports day, Dad saw me slip a cleaner ten dollars and ask her to be my mom for the day. He didn't stop me. Instead, he handed her another 200 bucks and asked if she could attend the parent meeting, too. After that, whenever something called for a mom, Dad let me go out and "hire" one. It wasn't until much later that Mom realized she hadn't heard from us in a long time. She canceled her meetings and came to pick me up from school herself. But at the gate, the teacher frowned and stopped her. Confused, she went home. The moment she stepped inside, she heard me talking to the property manager. "My mom's dead," I said. "Do you wanna be my new mom?"

My mom is a pathological liar who enjoys making herself seem like the victim. Unfortunately, I'm always the scapegoat. When I was little, there was one time when she went out to play poker with her friends. As a result, she forgot to go home and prepare dinner on time. After that, she slapped me in front of the entire family. "This brat ran off to god knows where earlier! I went out looking for her, which is why dinner got delayed!" Because of that lie, I had to kneel in the courtyard throughout the night. When I was studying, I had to take an extremely important exam. My teacher repeatedly reminded the parents to prepare all materials required for their children. But my mom didn't even prepare anything for me. After that, she even said in front of everyone, "I've already prepared the materials for her. She was the one who threw them away when she was on her way to school because she didn't want to take the exam at all!" Since then, all of my classmates ostracized me throughout my entire school life. After I came of age, my mom kept crying to me in the middle of the night. "Your father has been abusing me for so many years. I had to endure everything for your sake, you know!" I advised her to get a divorce, only for her to tell an exaggerated version of what I said to my father. "Your daughter egged me on to divorce you! She said she doesn't need a useless father like you! I couldn't stand it anymore, so I'm telling you this!" He flew into a fit of rage on the spot, which led to him accidentally pushing me down the stairs. I died on the spot from the fall. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day my mom cries to me about my dad for the first time.

My mom bought me a house with zero down payment. For five years, I scrimped and saved until I finally paid off the mortgage. But then, she told me she wanted to transfer the house to her first love's son to use as his wedding home. When I said no, she pulled out the property deed and slapped it down in front of me. "The house is in my name. I'll give it to whoever I want. You'd better hand it over willingly, or don't blame me for forgetting we're family." So I pulled out another deed—this one with my name on it—and called 911. "Hello? I'd like to report a trespasser."

Ever since I was little, I knew my mom didn't want me. My dad, though, kept telling me that she loved me, but some complicated stuff was keeping her away. He said that once I grew up, I needed to find her and claim my place in her life. I always figured he was just making things up so I wouldn't grow up resentful of the motherly love I never had. Then the debt piled up. Dad was scrolling through TikTok, looking for any way to drum up sympathy online, when he suddenly let out a wild yell. "Scrappy! Look, it’s your mom! Pack your stuff, we’re going to find her!" I stared at the screen. The woman in the video was stunning, effortlessly poised, and dripping in old-money elegance. A cold pit formed in my stomach. My mom was a wealthy socialite from New York City? How could someone like her ever be connected to a holler like ours? Even with the doubts screaming in my head, I packed my worn-out duffel bag and boarded the bus to Manhattan with my dad.