“Inventing Anna”: Rachel Williams suing Netflix for the way she was portrayed in present about pretend heiress Anna Sorokin

Netflix has been hit with a defamation lawsuit by Rachel DeLoache Williams, who’s unhappy with how she was portrayed all via the scripted assortment “Inventing Anna.” The current will depend on convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, who befriended Williams in actual life. 

Williams wrote about her relationship with Sorokin, which began in 2016, in a most well-liked essay for Vanity Fair and a subsequent e e-book known as “My Friend Anna.” Sorokin scammed pretty a few associates, along with banks and inns by saying she was an heiress named Anna Delvey. 

When they met, Williams was a 28-year-old editor for Vanity Fair and Sorokin was portraying herself as 25-year-old German heiress Anna Delvey, who had a notion fund — which was a lie.

After deceiving New York elites between 2016 and 2017, Sorokin was found accountable of 4 counts of theft of firms, three counts of grand larceny and one rely of tried grand larceny, and was jailed in 2019.

The con artist, the parents she scammed and her then-friends, along with Williams, have been portrayed all via the 2022 Netflix current “Inventing Anna.” 

In the swimsuit, Williams claims Netflix “made a deliberate alternative for dramatic capabilities to diploma out Williams doing or saying elements all via the Series which portray her as a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative and opportunistic particular express particular person,” amongst fully fully various factors.

Williams claims Netflix portrayed her as “sponging off Sorokin by accepting presents of pricy clothes, jewelry and equipment” and allowing Sorokin to pay for elements. She moreover says Netflix portrayed her as abandoning Sorokin in Morocco on a lavish journey. 

Williams wrote about their 2017 journey to Morocco in her essay, claiming Sorokin left her with a $62,000 bill. However, all by means of her trial, jurors acquitted Sorokin of two counts, along with the allegation that she promised Williams an all-expenses paid journey to Morocco after which caught her with the bill.

In the swimsuit, Williams claims the Netflix current moreover made it appear like she lied to associates by concealing that she had helped the police arrest Sorokin. 

Williams claims many media retailers have “commented on Netflix’s hatchet job,” and the swimsuit lists pretty a few articles that favor Williams.

“As a outcomes of Netflix’s false portrayal of her as a vile and contemptible particular express particular person, Williams was subjected to a torrent of on-line abuse, unfavorable in-person interactions, and pejorative characterizations in podcasts, and so forth. which had been primarily based fully on the Series, which put together that Netflix’s actions uncovered her to public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace, or induced an evil opinion of her,” the swimsuit reads.

Williams was portrayed by actor Katie Lowes, whereas Anna was portrayed by Julia Garner. The current, produced by Shonda Rhimes, portrays pretty a few real-life people, nonetheless some are given fictitious names, “equal to Sorokin’s enterprise lawyer, her boyfriend, and the wealthy socialite and her designer acolyte,” in response to the swimsuit. 

The current must have given Williams’ character a fictitious title, “so that no person would take into account that the character was a portrayal ‘of and relating to’ the true Rachel Williams,” the swimsuit reads. 

The swimsuit alleges Netflix extra blurred the traces between actuality and fiction by exhibiting photos of Lowes beneath the faux Instagram account “realrachelwilliams” and later exhibiting {{{a photograph}}} of Williams beneath the an related faux account. 

The current, which was watched for nearly 6.6 billion minutes over the first 17 days of its launch, in response to the swimsuit, made pretty a few defamatory statements, the swimsuit claims. The scenes all via which Williams is allegedly defamed are listed all via the swimsuit. 

Williams is now demanding a jury trial. She is hoping to amass punitive damages, the price of the swimsuit and additional monetary low value on account of the Court deems merely and proper along with Netflix’s eradicating of the allegedly defamatory statements from the gathering.