In Netflix’s May December, Natalie Portman plays an actor named Elizabeth who descends upon a small town to research the relationship between Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom she’ll play in an upcoming film, and Joe (Charles Melton), decades after the couple’s scandalous start: They became sexually involved when the former was in her 30s and the latter was in seventh grade. But Vili Fualaau, who serves as the loose real-life inspiration for Melton’s Joe, says no one from the production even contacted him about the project to ask how his experiences might inform it.

“I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me—who lived through a real story and is still living it,” the now 40-year-old Fualaau told The Hollywood Reporter. He’s breaking his silence as May December earns critical acclaim and awards season accolades—including best-supporting-actor and best-screenplay honors for Melton and screenwriter Samy Burch, respectively, at last night’s New York Film Critics Circle dinner.

Mary Kay Letourneau, who died in 2020, was convicted of second-degree child rape and made to register as a sex offender after beginning a sexual relationship with her student, Fualaau, when he was 12 years old. Like Gracie and Joe, Letourneau and Fualaau welcomed multiple children and remained together for just over two decades, despite prison stints for both the fictional Gracie and the real Letourneau. While Burch previously told Vanity Fair that she was not beholden to research and “wanted to not feel clouded by the facts,” the commonalities between the film and the Letourneau case are undeniable. In one scene where Joe confronts Gracie about the origins of their relationship, she replies, “Who was the boss?”—a line straight out of an Australian TV interview featuring Letourneau and Fualaau.

“I’m still alive and well,” Fualaau, who welcomed a third child after Letourneau’s death from cancer and is set to soon become a grandfather, told The Hollywood Reporter. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a rip-off of my original story.”

He also took aim at the film’s director, Todd Haynes, who previously told the Daily Beast that while he wanted to “bear down on the specific choices and the distinctions that Samy Burch’s script makes from the Mary Kay Letourneau story,” there were still clear similarities such as Gracie’s lisp, which was informed by the real-life woman’s “lazy tongue.” “I love movies—good movies,” Fualaau added. “And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them. Those kinds of writers and directors—someone who can do that—would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays].”

Portman, whose character does not have an apparent real-life counterpart, acknowledged the challenges of bringing fictionalized versions of real people to life while discussing the film with VF at the Cannes Film Festival. “It is very, I think, dangerous,” she said. “As artists, we have to be very aware of not being vampires on people’s lives—and being much more empathetic, rather than bloodsucking, in our trying to feel other people’s emotions.”

Representatives for Netflix, Haynes, and Melton did not respond to requests for comment from The Hollywood Reporter. Vanity Fair has also reached out regarding the piece.