Netflix under Defamation fire over Inventing Anna smash hit

Categories: America, Defamation, Disputes

Ellis Sweetenham
September 6, 2022

Netflix, the streaming platform, has been pushing out loads of smash hit series over the last few years.

One that many readers will have seen was Inventing Anna. Based on a true story, Inventing Anna dramatized the actions of Anna Delvey, aka Anna Sorokin, who tricked the world into thinking she was a German Heiress.

The series followed Sorkin’s story all the way to her prison sentence and included portrayals of those people she met and scammed along the way.

One of these people was Rachel DeLoache Williams. Williams was friends with Sorokin from 2016 and was scammed, leaving her out of pocket of $62,000.00 following a luxury trip to Morocco.

During Sorokin’s trial, Williams testified that she was under the impression that Anna was footing the bill for the 6 night trip and that the unexpected debt caused her stress and anxiety.

This trip, and the character representing Williams featured significantly in the Netflix series- however Williams was not impressed with how the series played out and has filed a claim for defamation against Netflix.

Williams’ defamation claim said it showed her as “a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative and opportunistic person”.

The claim continues to state “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 characterisations in podcasts, etc.”

Williams has written her own book about the experience, called ‘My Friend Anna’ and do not engage with Netflix when making the series.

Netflix is yet to respond to the claim but its time to grab that popcorn again as this could be interesting viewing.

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Written By:

Ellis Sweetenham

Ellis is a contentious and non-contentious intellectual property (IP) solicitor at Lawdit Solicitors. Ellis also is an the Director and an intellectual property law consultant at Lawdit’s sister company Trademarkroom. Ellis qualified as a solicitor in 2019, and over her qualified years has gained valuable experience in all contentious and non- contentious matters relating to trade marks, copyright, designs and patents. Ellis has represented clients in a variety of matters, including those relating to infringement, licensing, oppositions, cancellations, invalidations, assignment, portfolio management, pre-filing due diligence and registration. This includes matters before the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, UK Intellectual Property Office, EU Intellectual Property Office and Word Intellectual Property Organisation. In addition to IP matters, Ellis is also experienced in other commercial law matters, including music law, defamation, data protection, civil litigation and commercial disputes. Ellis has built a reputation for being detail-focused and thorough, always available to provide clients with the highest level of client care. Ellis acts with the highest level of professionalism to ensure that her clients are well informed and their best interests are at the centre of all advice given and action taken. Ellis is a regular on the Lawdit Solicitors Mark Wing Podcast, and has written many legal articles, both for Lawdit and Trademarkroom’s reading room, as well as for external IP publications. Ellis is based in our Isle of Wight office.