Rachel DeLoache Williams has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix for her portrayal in the show, Inventing Anna. In the show, Williams was played by actress Katie Lowes, while fake German heiress (and convicted fraudster) Anna Sorokin/Delvey was played by Julia Garner.
As many will know, Williams has already told her version of events through several mediums, including an essay for Vanity Fair titled, My Bright Lights Misadventure With A Magician Of Manhattan, and her book titled, My Friend Anna. She was apparently approached prior to the creation of the series but declined any involvement, claiming the show was running “PR for a con woman”.
Delvey and Williams became friends in 2016, and were 25 and 28 respectively at the time. After deceiving New York’s elite circles between for the next year and leaving Williams with a US$62,000 bill in Morocco in 2017, Delvey was arrested in October of that year. In 2019, Williams gave a tearful testimony in court about how she had been under the impression that Sorokin would cover all their costs, and said she suffered stress and anxiety over the unexpected debt.
Williams’ lawsuit, which has been access by Variety, documents 16 separate accounts of defamatory statements about Williams made throughout the series.
In the suit, Williams claims 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,” among other things.
The ex-Vanity Fair editor also claims that Netflix portrayed her as “sponging off Sorokin by accepting gifts of expensive clothes, jewellery and accessories” and allowing Sorokin to pay for things. She also alleges that Netflix portrayed her as abandoning Sorokin while in Morocco on a lavish trip.
“As a result of Netflix’s false portrayal of her as a vile and contemptible person, Williams was subjected to a torrent of online abuse, negative in-person interactions, and pejorative characterizations in podcasts, etc. that were based on the Series, which establish that Netflix’s actions exposed her to public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace, or induced an evil opinion of her,” the suit statement reads.
Some of these statements called her things including a “Karen,” a “gold digging mooch,” a “cry baby,” and a “greedy clown”.
The suit also argues that the show should have given Williams’ character a fictitious name, “so that no one would believe that the character was a portrayal ‘of and concerning’ the real Rachel Williams,” the suit continued. Further to this, it claimed that the show has blurred the lines between fact and fiction, using the example of using some photographs of Lowes under the fake Instagram account ‘realrachelwilliams’ and later showing a photo of the real Williams under the same account.
Williams is now demanding a jury trial and is hoping to receive punitive damages along with the cost of the suit, further monetary relief as the Court deems just and Netflix’s removal of the allegedly defamatory statements from the series.
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