A new movie has her name on the top of everyone’s minds…again.
In 1997, one of the biggest stories of the year didn’t have to do with a celebrity or political event: It had to do with a married 34-year-old teacher who claimed to be in love with her sixth-grade student.
It’s been decades since Mary Kay Letourneau shocked the world with the “affair” she was having with a student named Vili Fualaau, then 12. Now, we’re revisiting their shocking story because of a new star-studded film that takes inspiration from their lives. May December, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, is loosely based on Letourneau’s troubling life.
May December is available to stream on Netflix now. Before you watch the film, here’s a quick refresher on all the twists and turns that took place inside one of the most controversial “relationships” in recent history.
The shocking story of Mary Kay Letourneau’s relationship with Vili Fualaau
Letourneau first met Fualaau when the boy was in elementary school, she has said. She formed a close relationship with him when he was in second grade, one that she claimed was (initially) completely above board. “I didn’t know what [my feelings] meant,” she told The Seattle Times. “I felt that one day he might marry my daughter.”
At the time, Letourneau’s marriage was falling apart, and she already had four children. Within a few short years, by the time Fulaau was in middle school, Letourneau and Fualaau had developed a romantic and sexual relationship.
Eventually, Letourneau’s husband found letters that Fualaau had written to his wife. He handed them over to Child Protective Services — by which point, Fualaau was 12 years old, and Letourneau was already pregnant with his child.
In March of 1997, Letourneau was arrested for child rape. In May of that same year, she gave birth to a baby girl, and shortly after that, she pleaded guilty to two counts of child rape. The judge sentenced her to seven and a half years of prison, then suspended most of that sentence on the condition that she take certain medication for bipolar disorder, enter a treatment program for sex offenders, and never have any contact with Fualaau. Letourneau ended up spending six months in prison, total, before she was released on parole.
A year later, Letourneau, then 36, broke her parole by seeing Fualaau, then 14. She became pregnant a second time, and went back to jail. This time, she had to give birth to her second daughter in prison.
In 2004, Letourneau was released from prison again. Shortly after, she and Fualaau successfully petitioned to remove the court order that prevented them from seeing one another. They were married in 2005. She was 43, and he was 22.
In 2006, Faulaau offered some profound insight into how he viewed his relationship with Letourneau, then 44. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, he said he sometimes walked to Puget Sound, looked out at the water, and thought about his life. “I think, what would my life have been like if I had never made a move on Mary? What if I had kept it as a crush and left it at that? Where would I be and where would she be — what would life be like? [But] I can never see more than the question.”
Did Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau stay together?
This is hardly the kind of story you’d expect to have a “happily ever after” — but in this case, there technically is one. Or at least, there was for a while, if you’re willing to believe the fairytale Letourneau and Faulaau told the world.
Letourneau and Fualaau were married for over a decade. During that time period, they kept a relatively low profile. Their children went to school in the same district where Letourneau had once taught. Fualaau worked as a gardener and DJ, and Letourneau got a job as a paralegal. In a 2015 interview with Barbara Walters, they admitted that their children did know the origins of their parents’ relationship, but argued that the kids were largely fine with it.
“One of our daughters just said out of the blue, ‘You and daddy’s relationship would be all right in whatever country,'” Letourneau said. “I said, ‘Well, you’re right. You’re right.’”
How did Mary Kay Letourneau die and was she still married to Vili Fualaau?
In 2017, a full 21 years after their relationship began, Fualaau filed for separation from Letourneau. Neither of them ever provided details to the public on the context behind their decision to separate.
In 2020, Letourneau died of cancer. Fualaau did not provide a public statement following her death. Three years later, Letourneau and Fualaau’s daughter, Georgia, announced she was pregnant this fall. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the 24-year-old said, “My mom was a very strict mother — but she also loved each and every one of her kids in their own way. So I feel like everything she’s taught us, just led to us being able to be amazing parents in the future.”
Is May December based on Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau’s relationship?
Now, the film May December is reigniting the conversation around this endlessly controversial entanglement.
In an interview with PEOPLE, screenwriter Samy Burch simultaneously denied that the film was directly about Letourneau’s life, yet also acknowledged that much of May December was inspired by it. “I really wanted a fictional story that dealt with this tabloid culture of the ’90s that has kind of seemingly led into this true-crime biopic world we’re in now, and kind of question that transition and why we want to keep recreating these stories,” Burch said. “That was the real jumping off point for me.”
Many details in the film’s plot are different from that of Letourneau’s real life. For example, in the film, the older woman meets the child through a pet shop, not through school. But there is there was one real-life detail they used directly: Letourneau’s manner of speaking.
“To be honest, there were things in kind of a loose upper palate that we did find interesting in Mary Kay Letourneau’s speech that was a kick-off for [Julianne Moore],” director Todd Haynes told PEOPLE. Speaking of Letourneau, he said, “She’s not a pedophile, this woman; she doesn’t have a history of going after every little teenage boy. There’s something very specific that happened to these two people.”
Vili Fualaau reacts to May December: “I’m offended by the entire project”
In early January, Fualaau offered a rare public statement to The Hollywood Reporter regarding his thoughts on May December.
“I’m alive and well,” he said, confirming that he still lives in the Seattle area. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story. I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it.”
Fualaau went on to criticize the way his life was characterized in the film. “I love movies — good movies,” he said. “And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them. Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays].”
