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Mary Kay Letourneau, Vili Fualaau’s Awkward Interview That Inspired ‘May December’ Scene Resurfaces
Mary Kay Letourneau’s affair with her former student Vili Fualaau loosely inspired the 2023 drama May December. Just weeks after the film made its streaming debut on Netflix, an interview of the former couple resurfaced that proved how much the scandal inspired the film.
After the film was added to Netflix on December 1, fans took to social media to share an interview that Letourneau and Fualaau, 40, did with Channel Seven’s Sunday Night in Australia in 2018.
During the interview, host Matt Doran asked Letourneau why she believed her relationship with Fualaau was appropriate despite the fact that he was 12 and she was 34.
“Who was the boss? Who was the boss?” she responded as she turned to Fualaau. “Who was the boss back then? Who was the boss back then?”
Fualaau remained silent as he uncomfortably looked back and forth between Letourneau and Doran. “Who was? Just say,” Letourneau instructed Fualaau.
Fualaau responded by calling her comments “ridiculous,” adding, “This is getting weird.”
However, he eventually ended the awkward interaction by stating that he “was the pursuer.”
Social media users couldn’t help but notice that the interview was shockingly similar to a scene in the movie, which stars Julianne Moore as a character inspired by Letourneau and Charles Melton as a character inspired by Fualaau.
In the scene, Melton’s character confronts Moore’s character about who was responsible for the beginning of their relationship. “Who was the boss? Who was in charge?” Moore’s character aggressively asked in response to the question.
After Letourneau and Fualaau’s relationship came to light, she was sentenced to serve more than seven years in prison for child rape in 1997. While the court ordered them to stay apart, the pair didn’t listen and they became pregnant with two children before Fualaau turned 15.
The pair married in 2005, though split in 2017 when Fualaau filed for legal separation. Despite their decision to call it quits, the former couple still lived together and were occasionally spotted on public outings. Fualaau and Letourneau’s divorce was finalized in 2019.
Despite no longer being romantically involved, Letourneau and Fualaau continued to coparent their two daughters, Georgia and Audrey. Additionally, he was by her side when she died of stage 4 cancer in 2020.
Even before May December was released, many people were fascinated by Letourneau and Fualaau’s controversial relationship.
“It was a tragic fantasy of a woman who was broken and unloved trying to find the love and fulfillment that she had never had in her life,” Letourneau’s childhood friend Michelle Lobdell exclusively told In Touch in August 2022. “Not from her parents, not from her family, not from, from anybody and obviously a friendship with another person, me, wasn’t capable of filling that role either.”
Lobdell continued, “People call it a love affair because that’s what Mary Kay wanted them to believe. That’s what Mary Kay wanted to believe. Mary Kay created a story, and I knew she would stick to it to the day she died. It doesn’t matter what [happened], if she [hated] his guts, she [would] still claim he [was] the love of her life. … She desperately needed the fantasy of this love affair to be true.”
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