Mary Kay Letourneau’s Ex Vili Fualaau Says He Wasn’t Contacted for May December: ‘They Chose to Do a Ripoff’

Vili Fualaau, ex-husband of Mary Kay Letourneau, speaks about May Decembera new film partially inspired by his own highly publicized experience.

Fualaau, now 40, said The Hollywood Reporter that he was never contacted by director Todd Haynes, screenwriter Samy Burch, or Charles Melton, who plays a character who shares many similarities with Fualaau.

“I am still alive and well. If they had approached me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they decided to make a ripoff of my original story,” Fualaau said.

He added: “I am offended by the whole project and the lack of respect for me – who lived the real story and still lives it.”

Fualaau said that “my story is not nearly as simple as” May December shows it.

Netflix spokespeople did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. A representative for Haynes had no comment.

Letourneau, who died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 58, was a Seattle teacher sentenced to more than seven years in prison for child rape after she began sexually abusing her sixth-grader, Fualaau, in 1996. She became pregnant twice with Fualaau’s children. before he turned 15, despite court orders to keep them apart.

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Mary Kay LeTourneau and Vili Fualaau in 2010.

Doug Hyun / A&E / Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Fualaau was already an adult when Letourneau was released from prison and petitioned the court to allow them to see each other. Letourneau’s restraining order was lifted, but she remained a registered sex offender in Washington state until her death.

Despite the criminal history of their relationship, the couple married in 2005. They broke up in 2017 after Fualaau filed for legal separation. However, as the separation progressed, they continued to live together. Fualaau was at Letourneau’s side when she died, leaving him a large part of her estate in her will.

May Decembermeanwhile, it’s set in Savannah, Georgia, and stars Julianne Moore as a woman named Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who, when she was 36, began an affair with a 13-year-old at the pet store where they worked, which caused an obsession with tabloids.

The two married after her release from prison, and Joe Yoo (Melton), now 36 in the film and preparing to be empty handed while sending his younger children off to college, claims the relationship was always consensual.

Until Hollywood actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) comes to town to investigate their relationship as she prepares to play Gracie in a scandal movie. Elizabeth’s interference in their lives causes Joe to reevaluate his dynamic with Gracie.

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Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in “May December”.

Courtesy of Netflix

At the New York Film Festival in September, screenwriter Burch explained how the story was based on real events.

“I really wanted a fictional story that dealt with this ’90s tabloid culture that kind of led to the world of true crime biopics that we’re in now, and kind of questions that transition and why we want to keep recreating these stories,” she said. “That was a real jumping off point for me.”

“All these stories like this that are on the air are just completely embedded in everybody’s cultural history,” Burch added.

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At that press conference, director Haynes said Moore, 62, took inspiration from Letourneau when building the character, including giving Gracie a noticeable swagger.

“Also this idea of ​​how this kind of original relationship comes about? What myth are these two people telling each other about the roles they’re playing?” he continued with the topic. “She’s not a pedophile, this woman; she doesn’t have a history of attacking every little teenager. There’s something very specific that happened to these two people.”

“But it’s shrouded in fantasy,” Haynes continued, “which is that she’s a princess who needs to be rescued from the house tower, and he’s a young, virile knight, almost like a Greco-Roman young knight, who’s going to come with all this sexual with masculinity, strength and beauty and save her. And so she plays the little girl.”

Last month Melton, 33, said The Hollywood Reporter about the “complex” story and characters in May Decemberwhich earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Charles Melton, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman at the May and December Premiere in LA on November 16, 2023.

Natasha Campos/Getty

“Samy Burch’s script, there’s so much between the text,” he said, “and it’s so huge, in exploring these complex characters, and the complexity of who Joe is and what he represents, and how he’s had to navigate his life has really had an impact on a kid at such a young age, and the public perception, with the tabloid culture, that just led to him being an empty nester. There’s so much to look at and understand.”

“That was really exciting to me: understanding repression and loneliness, and how certain emotions can live in the body, and how to translate that into storytelling,” Melton said. “It really came down to a lot of preparation…”

May December it’s on Netflix now.

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Source: HIS Education