10 series based on real events and surrounded by controversy

BarcelonaA true story can be a very juicy starting point for a television series, but also an inexhaustible source of headaches. Inevitably, if the protagonists of the story being told by the fiction are still alive, they may feel that they have not been well represented or understood by the creators. In some cases, this can even lead to legal proceedings. A recent example of the discomfort that a series based on real events can generate is Love Story, but there are many other examples.

One of the most watched series on Disney+ worldwide right now is Love Story, a retelling of the tragic love story between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, who died in a plane crash along with her sister. The fiction, produced by Ryan Murphy, explores their falling in love and their ups and downs due to media and family pressure. When Kennedy met Bessette, he was already the most sought-after bachelor in the United States and had already had relationships with popular figures, the most well-known of which was with actress Daryl Hannah. A few days ago, the star of Splash harshly criticized the production, stating that the image portrayed of her is completely false. "I have never pressured anyone to get married. I have never desecrated any family memory or intruded on anyone's private memorial. I have never leaked any story to the press. I have never compared Jacqueline Onassis's death to that of a dog. It's terrible to have to defend myself from a television series," explains the actress, sixty-five years old, in an essay in the New York Times.

Jack Schlossberg, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s nephew, has also spoken out against the series. The candidate for Congress for New York, who was six years old when his uncle died, claims that the series is a complete invention and that no member of the creative team has ever spoken to the family. "For those of you wondering if his family was consulted at any point or had anything to do with the series, the answer is no," Schlossberg wrote. Murphy responded to the criticism with a scathing remark: "I thought it was quite curious to get angry about a relative you don't really remember." The comment, obviously, did not please Kennedy's nephew. Although the series is clearly inspired by real events, at the beginning of each episode a warning alerts that it is a work of fiction.

The crime of the Guardia Urbana is arguably one of the most well-known events in Catalonia's crime news, and its adaptation to the screen has not been without controversy. Its main protagonist, Rosa Peral, did everything in her power to torpedo the series: from demanding to review the series before its premiere, to requesting its withdrawal and suing Netflix for 30 million euros for infringing on her image and that of her daughter. None of these proceedings were resolved in Peral's favor, who in The Burning Body is played by Úrsula Corberó.

The series Narcos, by Netflix, turned the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar into a pop figure. While viewers were going crazy with the Colombian's biography, his son did not mince words when criticizing the series. In a Facebook post, Sebastián Marroquín (formerly Juan Pablo Escobar, son of drug trafficker Juan Pablo Escobar) listed the 28 lies that, according to him, were in the second season. Beyond whether the series was a faithful portrayal of Escobar's figure, Narcos was controversial because some sectors claimed that it only perpetuated stereotypes about Colombia.

Pamela Anderson was an icon of the nineties, but this celebrity came with the price of certain ridicule. For years, the actress has made an effort to distance herself from a superficial image, and for this reason, she was not at all pleased that Disney+ made Pam & Tommy, a miniseries that recalled when an intimate video starring her and her then-husband, Tommy Lee, was leaked. Since the project was announced, Anderson made her rejection evident, even though the creators argued that the series sought to rehabilitate the image of the former lifeguard. The actress still has a chip on her shoulder, and when she was seated at the same table as the series' producer, the also actor Seth Rogen, at this year's Golden Globes, she complained publicly. "I felt bad. In time, hopefully, he will contact me to apologize, although it doesn't matter. When you're a public person, it seems you don't have a right to privacy. But your darkest and deepest secrets or tragedies shouldn't be easy prey for a television series. That bothered me a bit," the actress said shortly after the ceremony.

Taking the non-fiction book by Patrick Radden Keefe as a reference, Disney+ brought to the screen the true story of the disappearance of a mother of a large family, Jean McConville, during the harshest years of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Two of the people linked to the case were sisters Dolours and Marian Price, members of the IRA, who are played by Lola Petticrew and Hazel Doupe in the series. Dolours Price died in 2013, but her sister Marian is still alive and has shown strong disagreement with the series. In July 2025, she filed a defamation lawsuit in Dublin courts against Disney and the series' production company because she considers that it wrongly portrays her as responsible for McConville's execution. In the lawsuit for damages, Price demanded that the platform remove the scene in which the fictional Marian murders the kidnapped woman.

This is not the only controversy the series has had to face. Gerry Adams, a historical leader of Sinn Féin, also appears in the fiction, portrayed as the head of the IRA, a claim he has always denied. To cover themselves, at the end of each episode there is a warning stating that Adams has always denied being a member of this organization or participating in any of its violent actions.

Richard Gadd rose to Catholic fame following the miniseries Baby Reindeer, in which he recounted his story as a victim of harassment. Although he did not use any real identities, a woman named Fiona Harvey claimed to be the person Gadd had based the stalker character on, and for this reason, she decided to sue Netflix for $170 million ($120 million in damages and $50 million in profit sharing). She argues that the platform did nothing to verify if the portrayal of her in the series, which is presented as a true story, was accurate. Furthermore, she claims that, even though the fiction does not use her name, it is easy to identify that the character of Martha is based on her. A US federal judge set the trial start date for May 6, 2025, in the Central District Court of California, but the process was halted by an appeal filed by Netflix.

Another Netflix series that has faced legal problems is the recreation of the story of five Black boys who were wrongly accused of the rape of a white woman. Former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein sued the platform, considering that the series portrayed her as "a racist and unethical villain" and attributed actions and viewpoints to her that were not hers. Fairstein managed to get the platform to add a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode clarifying that, although the story is inspired by real events and characters, some elements are fictional for dramatic purposes. The plaintiff did not receive financial compensation from Netflix, which agreed to make a donation of one million dollars to Innocence Project, a non-profit organization that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people.

The true crime genre is one of the most prone to generating controversy, as the families of the victims often do not look favorably upon the recreation of the murders of their loved ones. Dahmer, created by Ryan Murphy, also behind Love Story, is a good example of this type of case. The series, one of the ten most-watched in Netflix's history, provoked adverse reactions among the victims' families and other viewers, who considered that a murderer was being glorified. One of the main detractors of the series is Rita Isbell, sister of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer's victims. In 1992, Isbell testified at Dahmer's trial and gave a highly emotional speech that was recreated in the series without contacting the protagonist at the time. Eric Wynn, a friend of several of Dahmer's victims, whom he met at Club 219, where he performed as a drag queen, also spoke out against the series.

Inventing Anna, a series by Shonda Rhimes, tells how Anna Delvey, also known as Anna Sorokin, a socialite of uncertain origins, was able to scam New York's high society. Although Delvey herself should be the most upset with the series –spoiler alert: she isn't, rather she used the fiction for publicity–, it was one of her victims who sued Netflix. Rachel DeLoache Williams, who was a friend of Delvey and later one of her victims, filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix for the portrayal of her. Among other things, she claimed that in up to sixteen instances she is falsely shown as "snobbish," "unethical," and "greedy." The series explains that Williams abandoned Delvey in Morocco and reported her to the authorities. In early February of this year, Williams reached an agreement with Netflix, and the legal proceedings came to an end.

The main real protagonist of The Crown, Queen Elizabeth II, never publicly commented on the series, but other personalities who appeared as secondary characters did. One of the most vehement was John Major, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1990 and 1997. The former politician called the series a "bundle of malicious nonsense" after the fiction showed a supposed conversation between Major and Prince Charles planning a possible abdication of the queen. Netflix quickly defended The Crown as a work of fiction.