Rachel DeLoache Williams, a longtime friend of Anna Delvey, is suing Netflix for defamation for her portrayal in “Inventing Anna.”
The former Vanity Fair employee has filed a lawsuit against the streaming service, who brought the story of the scammer socialite and how she fooled New York society into believing she was a German heiress to life with showrunner Shonda Rhimes, after she claims they invaded her privacy and defamed her through her portrayal in the mini-series starring Julia Garner and Anna Chlumsky.
The documents state: “This lawsuit will demonstrate that Netflix made a purposeful decision for dramatic reasons to portray Williams as a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative, and opportunistic person in the series.
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Williams’s defense contends, “This lawsuit is founded on patently false representations of fact and the attribution of comments she never said.””
In her lawsuit, the author of “My Friend Anna” claims that Yahoo News, The Huffington Post, and The New York Post “commented on Netflix’s smear campaign” against her.
Williams, who is requesting a jury trial in addition to damages, punitive damages, and costs of suit, claims that “as a result of Netflix’s false portrayal of her as a vile and contemptible person,” she has been “subjected to a torrent of online abuse, negative in-person interactions, and pejorative characterizations in podcasts, etc. that were based on the series, establishing that Netflix’s actions exposed her to public contempt, ridicule
The lawsuit recognizes that Netflix possesses the “”should have given the character a fictional name and adjusted the character’s identifying details so that no one would have believed that the character was a portrayal ‘of and concerned’ the real Rachel Williams,” the critics contend.
The records elaborate on her claim that they might have given the component a different name.
They argue that “given the easy alternative of protecting her by using a fictional name, the decision to use her real name evidences Netflix’s intent to harm her reputation, thus justifying the imposition of punitive damages, particularly if Netflix made that decision because Williams had sold her rights to the competing Sorokin project being developed by HBO.”
The court records further note that Williams’ character, portrayed by Katie Lowes, is depicted using an Instagram account in which a real photo of her is utilized, “thus blurring the line between fact and fiction and leading viewers to believe that the series reflects the real Rachel Williams.””
Inventing Anna stars Katie Lowes as Rachel, Julia Garner as Anna Delvery, Laverne Cox as Kacy Duke, and Alexis Floyd as Neff Davis.
It also outlines a number of allegedly defamatory assertions made throughout the episode and asserts that Netflix produced them “with genuine malice, which is defined as knowledge of falsehood or reckless disregard for truth or falsity.”