Netflix Resolves ‘Inventing Anna’ Defamation Suit With Former Vanity Fair Reporter

Netflix’s defamation case brought by journalist Rachel DeLoache Williams over the limited series “Inventing Anna” has been dismissed after nearly four years.

The former Vanity Fair staffer and friend of fraudster Anna Sorokin, self-dubbed Anna Delvey, sued the streamer in 2022, claiming the series deliberately depicted her as “snobbish, disloyal and dishonest.”

“Williams and Netflix have resolved the lawsuit,” a Netflix spokesperson and Williams’ attorney, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, said Friday.

The case was dismissed in Delaware district court Friday with prejudice, meaning that neither party can bring the same case forward again. Each side will pay their own legal fees and expenses.

The 2022 suit alleged that, as a result of her portrayal in the Netflix series, “Williams was subjected to a torrent of online abuse, negative in-person interactions and pejorative characterizations in podcasts,” and detailed that she has received thousands of abusive messages.

Williams’ character, played by Katie Lowes in the Netflix series, was the only one who was given a real person’s full name and personal background details, the reporter’s suit noted.

The series was based on a New York magazine article about the fake heiress, who went by Anna Delvey and who served nearly four years in prison for fraud.

In 2019, Williams published a book about her experiences with Sorokin, “My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress” (based on a 2018 story she had written for Vanity Fair), and signed a deal with HBO to adapt the book for TV — events that are depicted in “Inventing Anna.”

Williams also claimed in her lawsuit that the series glorified Sorokin and villainized her character.

Netflix attempted to throw out the lawsuit in 2024, arguing that the show’s creators had license to give their own interpretation of Sorokin’s story, but a federal judge denied that motion.

The judge had not yet ruled on the streamer’s follow-up motion for summary judgment when the case was resolved Friday.

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