NASCAR

NASCAR's Hailie Deegan Said She Skipped Event After Threats Against Boyfriend

Deegan released a 15 minute video Monday explaining the situation

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Victoria's Voice Foundation 200 -Practice
Meg Oliphant

Aspiring NASCAR racer Hallie Deegan said Monday that she skipped a recent event after an obsessed fan, caught in a catfish scheme, threatened to kill her boyfriend.

Deegan passed on last week's Freedom 500 in Bradenton, Florida, apologizing to fans and telling them she had to "deal with something on the personal, safety side."

In a 15-minute YouTube video Monday, Deegan and her boyfriend, race car driver Chase Cabre, explained that an obsessed male fan once sent her an eight-page handwritten letter "stating that he was dating me, in a relationship with me for months and months."

She looked up the man's name and "figured out that he was getting catfished by a fake Hallie Deegan account," said Deegan, who drives in the Camping World Truck Series, NASCAR's third tier, behind the Cup and Xfinity Series.

Deegan, 20, said she has kept an eye on the man's social media accounts and that he is convinced that Cabre is abusive and that she is "practically being held hostage."

"And so this guy ends up getting wrapped in this whole deal believing Chase beats me," Deegan said. "And I would normally not be worried about this, if the fact wasn't this person, this guy, lives near my race shop, near where I live, my home. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me scared. You shouldn't be scared at your own house."

The situation had been escalating recently, the couple said.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

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