The 2022 Netflix series Inventing Anna, centered around the dealings of notorious New York con artist Anna Sorokin, is about to become a bit of a problem for the streaming company after a defamation lawsuit was filed against it over the script's interpretation of the real-life story.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, the claimant is none other than Rachel Williams (played by Katie Lowes), a former friend of Sorokin and the, as well as photo editor and producer for Vanity Fair, and the person who ultimately ended up exposing Sorokin (played by Julia Garner) to the New York City Police Department. According to the lawsuit filed in Delaware’s Federal Court, Williams argues that Inventing Anna portrays her “as a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative and opportunistic person,” who only ended her friendship with Sorokin once the convicted thief started running out of money for her schemes.
In Inventing Anna, Williams is shown to accept all sorts of gifts and niceties from Sorokin, before eventually selling her out to authorities, with one particular scene focusing on Willaims abandoning Sorokin in Morocco after the latter’s credit card is declined. However, the plaintiff claims “that she told Sorokin before the trip that she’d have to leave on a specific date to travel to France”, and that, contrary to the miniseries' intent, she actually paid her own share of dinner checks, drinks and spa treatment when they went out.
Overall, the core arguments of Williams' lawsuit are centered on establishing the plaintiff’s good faith, and that she did not end her friendship with Sorokin due to monetary reasons, but due to discovering the nature of her crimes that caused Williams to become liable for at least $62,000 worth of liabilities. Inventing Anna was created by Shonda Rhimes, garnering mostly mixed reviews when it premiered back in February, although it did dominate the streaming charts for three consecutive weeks when it came out.
Williams’ lawyer, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, referred to at least a couple of interviews featuring Rhimes where the showrunner says that during some crucial parts of the plot they wanted “to intentionally be fictionalizing moments”, as opposed to merely doing that by accident. Whereas Sorokin sold her rights to the story to Netflix for $320,000 in 2017, Williams went on to write her own account of her devastating friendship with Sorokin in a 2018 Vanity Fair article, as well as a book written by her titled My Friend Anna: The True Story of the Fake Heiress of New York City.
Sorokin’s crime spree unfolded between 2013 and 2017 when she rose to become a noted New York socialite up until her arrest. The lawsuit is far from the first defamatory claim to fall upon Netflix due to production based or inspired by real-life stories, with both Queen’s Gambit and Filthy Rich leading to litigation.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter