I largely agree with Brad, with the only exception that I don't find it that surprising. Small towns and villages (I was brought up in a small rural town in England) seem to be the same everywhere. Much the same sort of thing does happen in small, rural English communities - I know this from experience. What is different are the possible consequences - which seem to be worse here.

My guess is that what has upset somebody is pure envy. You BF has the means to build the house extension, run the motorbike, have the holidays and the rest of it - and the mean spirited gossips, the type who feel diminished by someone else having something they do not have themselves decide that he could not possibly be doing so much better than them in any honest way so it starts with "All that money from a farang? Wouldn't be surprised if he was selling Yabba" then that gets repeated as "I hear he's selling Yabba" - then "He's selling Yabba - everyone says so". Malicious gossip is hard to deal with, partly because it is malicious - it's not meant to be fair. It's also very hard to pin down - because it's a sort of community effort - there's no single source, and possibly even the person who started the rumour ends up believing it - because "everyone knows".

The meeting with the village heads may clear the air "officially" but sadly, I doubt that the gossip will ever really die.

By the way colmx - I hope you censored those bank statements sufficiently to make sure no-one can get your account details from them.

Good luck to you both.