Is May December Based On A True Story?

The 2023 black comedy drama May December tells a shocking story of a relationship age gap that’s uncomfortable to consider for many reasons - especially since, somehow, actor Julianne More and director Todd Haynes manage to make the perpetrator into a character viewers can (almost) sympathize with. It’s a film that calls many moral boundaries into question, with a nuance that makes its many accolades, including Golden Globes and Academy Awards, understandable. However, while May December may handle its uncomfortable subject matter in a way that doesn’t point the finger of blame, the same can’t be said for the true story that inspired it.

Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo in the May December cast, a woman found guilty of raping a 13-year-old boy in the early 1990s. While in prison, she gave birth to the boy’s child, and decades later the pair are married and have a family together (which is where the nuanced exploration of the situation comes into play, explored through Natalie Portman’s Elizabeth playing Gracie in movie within the movie). The true story behind May December, while not a direct adaptation, is that of Mary Kay Letourneau - and the real-life events are both just as fascinating and uncomfortable to contemplate as the 2023 movie.

Who Is Mary Kay Letourneau?

The Inspiration For Julianne Moore's May December Character Explained

The plot of May December is heavily based on the life and criminal case of Seattle teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who became internationally infamous in the late 1990s. While not a biopic, May December draws inspiration from its true story heavily to the point that some of Julianne Moore’s lines in the 2023 movie are directly taken from interviews with Letourneau herself. Just like Julianne Moore’s May December character Gracie, Mary Kay Letourneau was imprisoned for having a sexual relationship with an underaged boy many decades younger than her.

The shocking age gap in May December was directly taken from the true story. In 1996, when she was 34, Mary Kay Letourneau became physically intimate with one of her students, Vili Fulalaau. At the time, Fulalaau was only 12 years old (A year younger than Joe in May December). The pair were discovered when a passerby noticed them romantically interacting in a car. However, this didn’t stop their relationship.

Letourneau continued her activities with Fulalaau until 1996 when she was arrested and charged with second-degree rape, to which she pleaded guilty. It was Letourneau’s first husband, Steve Letourneau, who eventually managed to provide concrete proof of the abuse when he discovered romantic letters she’d written to Fulalaau.

Much like Gracie in May December, Mary Kay Letourneau insisted she had a genuine romantic attachment to Fulalaau. According to Letourneau, she wasn’t a predator and had no interest in children or younger men. Her feelings for Fulalaau were limited to him and him alone, with the illegal age gap being something she claimed she had to morally overcome. Shockingly, she was also adamant that it as he who seduced her, and not the other way around.

Also like Gracie in May December, Letourneau and Fulalaau’s relationship continued during and after her prison sentence, and the pair eventually married and started a family. Initially, Letourneau only served a 3-month prison sentence on the condition she cut all ties with the minor. However, she breached her probation conditions and was then sentenced to seven years. Once she’d served her full sentence in 2005, she reconnected with Fulalaau, and the pair married.

Why Mary Kay Letourneau’s Case Drew So Much Attention

The Media Coverage Exposed A Shocking Societal Double Standard

May December captured an unsettling yet important aspect of the Mary Kay Letourneau case. Much like in the film, the true story that inspired May December drew a huge amount of international media attention. It also created many uncomfortable questions about how society treats and views older women who seduce underage men.

It was always clear, even during the 1990s when Letourneau and Fulalaau’s relationship came to light, that there was a significant double standard when it came to how sexual predators are perceived. There’s little doubt that, had Letourneau been male and Fulalaau female, she would have rightly received a lengthier sentence. There also wouldn’t have been any romanticizing of their relationship, which many media outlets at the time sickeningly did, painting the case as a story of forbidden love rather than what it actually was - a child being groomed and abused by an adult. This is evidenced by the fact that - as horrific as it seems - Letourneau, along with her and Fulalaau’s child, was featured on the cover of an issue of People in 1998.

The media perception of Fulalaau was just as disturbing. Rather than being described as a victim, which he was, he was instead treated by the media almost as an adult in their own right. In recent years there have been similar cases that rightly describe relationships like Letourneau and Fulalaau’s as the crimes they actually are. Unfortunately, though, this wasn’t the case in the 1990s, and this is one aspect of events that May December managed to capture notably well.

What May December Changes About Letourneau’s Story

While Heavily Inspired By The True Story, May December Isn't A Biopic

While May December draws much from the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau, it isn’t a biopic or a direct adaptation. There are many things that it changes, and it’s always important to remember that Julianne Moore’s Gracie and Letourneau aren’t the same person. There are many changes May December made to the story, some of which are quite significant.

Firstly, the way that Gracie meets Joe Yoo, the child she seduces, has the child of, and eventually marries in May December is completely different from how Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fulalaau’s relationship began. To Gracie in May December, Joe was simply a child in her son’s class, and it wasn’t until they began working together at a pet store that she groomed him.

This was a different, and arguably less predatory, dynamic than that of Fulalaau and Letourneau. As Fulalaau’s teacher, Letourneau was in a position of power over him, and he was a child placed directly under her care. This dynamic was absent from May December, which helped to make Gracie easier for audiences to sympathize with her somewhat.

May December also mirrors the fact that Mary Kay Letourneau also had a family and children of her own when her relationship with Fulalaau began. However, Gracie’s family still keep in contact with her - although, admittedly, their relationship is strained. This wasn’t the case with Mary Kay Letourneau. Following the revelations about her relationship with Fulalaau, Letourneau’s husband, Steve, left her. She was also barred from having contact with any of her four children.

The final significant change was the children Gracie and Joe had in May December. In the movie, Gracie gave birth to her first child with Joe during her prison sentence, and was pregnant by the time she was arrested. However, Mary Kay Letourneau didn’t have three children with Fulalaau, but two. What’s more, she gave birth to their first child between prison sentences. It was their second child, a daughter, who was born behind bars during the second sentencing Letourneau received after breaking the conditions of her probation by contacting Fulalaau.

Where Mary Kay Letourneau Is Now

The Inspiration For May December Passed Away In 2020

Much like Gracie and Joe in May December, Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fulalaau continued their relationship into Fulalaau’s adulthood, and the pair married and started a family. However, Fulalaau and Letourneau eventually divorced in 2019. Like Joe in May December, Fulalaau also eventually came to realize that he had been abused.

Letourneau passed away in 2020 due to cancer at age 58. At no point in her life did Mary Kay Letourneau ever show remorse for her actions, or acknowledge that she’d abused Vili Fulalaau. This is perhaps the most shocking aspect of all, and it’s also something that May December conveys incredibly well in how it brings the true story to the screen with Julianne Moore’s character, Gracie.