Is ‘May December’ based on a true story?

Warning: The following article mentions child sexual abuse. Please read with caution.

Todd Haynes’ new Netflix movie May December is inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal in the `90s, when Letourneau, a Washington State school teacher, had a love affair with her then 12-year-old student, Vili Fualaau. Here’s what you need to know about the Letourneau-Fualaau situation.

In 1997, Mary Kay Letourneau was a married 7th-grade teacher in the Seattle area. Around that same time, she began a sexual affair with Vili Fualaau, a student whom she had been mentoring. Letourneau was 34, and Fualaau was just 12 years old. News broke that Letourneau and Fualaau were involved when Letourneau’s husband, Steve Letourneau, discovered explicit correspondence between the two. He then informed both the school system and child protective services, according to Parade.

About one year earlier, police had caught Letourneau and Fualaau together in a parked car. However, Fualaau lied about his age, and when taken in for questioning, both denied anything sexual happened between them, and they were released.

Not long after Steve exposed the shocking abuse taking place between his wife and her student, Letourneau was arrested and charged with second-degree child rape. By that point, Letourneau was pregnant with Fualaau’s baby — the first of two children they had together.

Letourneau and Fualaau married

Once in custody, Mary Kay Letourneau pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape and received a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence. But she only served six months on the condition she’d receive sex offender treatment, seek mental healthcare for her diagnosed bipolar disorder, and perhaps most importantly, cut off all contact with Vili Fualaau. She didn’t.

Not long after her release, Letourneau was back behind bars for violating the terms of her parole. She was free just long enough, however, to get pregnant with Fualaau for a second time. The child was born while Letourneau was still in prison.

After Letourneau was released, the couple — who remained in contact while Letourneau served her sentence — got married in 2005. By that time, Fualaau was of age. In 2020, Letourneau died from cancer. She was 58. And though she and Fualaau were separated by that time, he was reportedly with Letourneau in her final days.

Todd Haynes movie is only loosely based on Letourneau

As far as how much director Todd Haynes’ new movie conforms to the Letourneau story, screenwriter Samy Burch told a New York Film Festival audience (via People), “I really wanted a fictional story that dealt with this tabloid culture of the `90s that has kind of seemingly led into this true-crime biopic world we’re in now, and kind of question that transition and why we want to keep recreating these stories. That was the real jumping off point for me.”

In Haynes’ film, Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, based on Letourneau. Meanwhile, Natalie Portman is Elizabeth Berry, an actress researching a part patterned on Atherton-Yoo, and Charles Melton plays Joe Yoo, a character inspired by Fualaau. May December opens in select theaters Nov. 17, 2023. It streams on Netflix Dec. 1.

If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.