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Vili Fualaau, who helped inspire Todd Haynes’ newest film May December, isn’t happy that no one from the film or Netflix contacted him about making the movie.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Fualaau said that he was “offended” after watching the movie and wished that anyone behind the film would have contacted him to consult or work with the crew on the project.
“I’m still alive and well,” said Fualaau. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story . . . I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it.”
May December shares extreme similarities with Vili’s real-life story
While not a direct depiction of his life, May December does feature a ton of similarities between the on-screen story of Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) and the real-life story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili.
The movie tells the story of a 13-year-old who is victimized a 36-year-old teacher when in the real world Fualaau was 12 when he was victimized by a 34-year-old Letourneau in 1996. Melton’s character is also Asian/Pacific Islander (half-Korean), while Fualaau was Samoan.
Similar to May December, Letourneau would be imprisoned for two counts of child rape and would subsequently have children born of her victim while in prison. The pair would marry when she was released from prison, although Letourneau died in 2020.
The team behind May December has not been shy about noting they did pull things from the real-world case of Vili and Mary Kay for the movie, with the infamous “Who was the boss?” scene in May December even pulled directly from an actual interview with Letourneau and Fualaau. However, writer Sammy Burch did tell THR last year that the case was only a “jumping off point” and that they were not trying to tell the story of Vili and Mary Kay specifically.
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