Mary Kay Letourneau's Ex Vili Fualaau SLAMS Ripoff May December Film _ E! News

Transcript

00:00 Billy Falau is calling out the filmmakers behind May December.

00:04 The ex-husband of late convicted sex offender Mary Kayla Tornow shares his thoughts about

00:10 the film, inspired by the former couple's real-life controversial romance.

00:15 Billy tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published January 4, "No one ever reached

00:20 out to him for consulting purposes," adding, "If they had reached out to me, we could have

00:25 worked together on a masterpiece.

00:27 Instead, they chose to do a rip-off of my original story."

00:31 The 40-year-old continues, "I'm offended by the entire project and the lack of respect

00:36 given to me, who lived through a real story and is still living it."

00:41 In May-December, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton play a married couple, Gracie and Joe,

00:46 whose relationship made tabloid headlines because it began when she was 36 and he was

00:52 13.

00:53 Kelly Portman portrays Elizabeth, an actress preparing to play Moore's character in a movie.

00:59 E! News reached out to reps for Charles, the film's director Todd Haynes and Netflix for

01:04 comment on Billy's remarks, but has not heard back.

01:08 Mary Kay, a Washington State teacher, was 34 and Billy was 12 and a student in her sixth-grade

01:15 class when they began their real-life romance.

01:18 She served more than seven years in prison after being convicted for second-degree rape

01:23 and had to register as a sex offender upon her release.

01:26 She and Billy, who shared two daughters, married in 2005 and divorced in 2019.

01:32 Mary Kay died of cancer the following year at age 58.

01:36 May-December screenwriter Sammy Birch told THR in November, "Certainly, that's the seed

01:41 of it, the big-picture thing.

01:43 But it was important to me that this wasn't the Mary Kay Latournel story.

01:47 It wasn't the same details.

01:49 I certainly don't want anyone to assume that we're trying to say all these conversations

01:53 happen behind closed doors.

01:56 It's not."

01:57 Todd added, "There were times when it became very, very helpful to get very specific about

02:02 the research and we learned things from that relationship, even in the ways that it deferred

02:06 from the relationship between Gracie and Joe in our film."

02:10 In addition, Julianne echoed that May-December, quote, "is not the story of Mary Kay Latournel."

02:16 "It's not the story of Mary Kay Latournel," she continued.

02:23 "It's not the story of Mary Kay Latournel."

02:24 "It's not the story of Mary Kay Latournel."

02:25 "It's not the story of Mary Kay Latournel."

02:26 "It's not the story of Mary Kay Latournel."