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If Katie Lowes played me, I’d be flattered. But that’s just me, I guess.
Photo: Nicole Rivelli/Netflix
Germany’s official scambassador to New York, Anna Sorokin/Anna Delvey, is back in the news cycle again, but this time she’s not the one in trouble. Former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams sued Netflix on August 29, 2022 for a defamatory depiction of her on Inventing Anna. Per Variety, Netflix has not been able to dismiss the complaint. Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly ruled on March 26 that the lawsuit will be allowed to proceed, despite Netflix’s argument that Shonda Rhimes and other show creators had the First Amendment right to take “literary license” when giving their interpretation of a public controversy. Connolly’s ruling suggests that at least some of the characterizations in the show are a matter of fact, not opinion — meaning they could potentially be considered defamatory differences.
Williams published an article in 2018 about her time with Sorokin, and apparently the series got the details of their friendship all wrong: “Williams did not stop being friends with Sorokin because Sorokin was having problems in Morocco, but rather because she subsequently discovered on her return to New York that Sorokin was a liar and a con artist,” reads a statement from Williams’s lawyer in Delaware state court, per The Hollywood Reporter.
In addition to finding Inventing Anna inaccurate to her lived experience, Williams also thinks the show’s depiction of her was just plain rude to a legal degree. Her case argues “that Netflix made a deliberate decision for dramatic purposes to show Williams doing or saying things in the Series which portray her as a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative and opportunistic person.”
“The reason why we have had to file this lawsuit is because Netflix used Rachel’s real name and biographical details, and made her out to be a horrible person, which she is not,” says Williams’s attorney, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs. “The devastating damage to her reputation could have been avoided if only Netflix had used a fictitious name and different details. Why didn’t they do this for her, when they did for so many other characters in the Series? Perhaps the reason was that she had chosen to play for the other team, i.e., HBO.” Yes, the lawsuit claims that Netflix might have done Williams so dirty in the series because she sold her story rights to a competing company.
Katie Lowes, the actress who plays Williams in the series, told Vulture that her version of Williams is, “young, naïve, and had a privileged life. I don’t think this is necessarily true of Rachel Williams in real life; I think this is true of the character Shonda wrote and what Shonda needed the character to be for the show.” She also said she had not met Williams personally. Sounds like Sorokin is about to have more inspiration for her courtroom art.
This post has been updated.
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