West
Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman hit back at Mary Kay Letourneau's former student lover's criticism
Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, stars in “May December,” brushed off complaints from Vili Fualaau, whose illicit relationship and marriage with his sixth-grade teacher inspired the hit Netflix film.
Mary Kay Letourneau, 34 when she was first arrested for her sexual relationship with Fualaau in 1997, spent seven years behind bars at Washington Corrections Center for Women on child rape charges after her affair with the 12-year-old was made public.
She gave birth to his first child while awaiting sentencing, then conceived his second in violation of her parole before she was arrested again and forced to serve her full sentence.
Despite the rabid publicity surrounding their relationship, the pair married in 2005 with People Magazine in attendance to take photos. This year, Fualaau will become a grandfather at 40 after his second daughter, conceived with Letourneau, gives birth.
‘MAY DECEMBER’ MOVIE ON MARY KAY LETOURNEAU ‘OFFENDED’ STUDENT LOVER VILI FUALAAU
Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, pictured, attended the 81st Golden Globes ceremony to accept awards for “May December.” (Getty Images)
Samy Burch, the director of “May December,” cited the Letourneau case as a starting off point for the film. Fualaau said he was “offended” the film’s crew didn’t consult him despite the fact he was still “alive and well,” calling the project a “ripoff” of his life.
Moore, who plays the character based on Letourneau, and Portman, who plays a method actress spending time with the embattled couple before starring in a film within the film, both said they were “sorry” Fualaau was disappointed.
Both were questioned about his critique in a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight at the 81st Golden Globes ceremony last weekend, where the film was nominated for best musical comedy or motion picture, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and best actress.
Both women stressed the film was meant to stand alone from its real-life inspiration, with Portman remarking that it is “its own story — it’s not meant to be a biopic.”
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Convicted child rapist Mary Kay Letourneau died of cancer in 2020 when she was 58, leaving behind her 37-year-old ex-husband, Vili Fualaau, and their two daughters. Georgia, the younger of the pair’s daughters, is expected to deliver a baby boy in the coming months. (Getty Images)
Moore told reporters director Todd Haynes was “always very clear when we were working on this movie that this was an original story … a story about these characters.”
“So that’s how we looked at it too,” Moore said. “This was our document. We created these characters from the page and together.”
“It’s not based on them,” Portman said. “Obviously, their story influenced the culture that we all grew up in and influenced the idea. But it’s fictional characters that are really brought to life by Julianne Moore and Charles Melton so beautifully.”
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Fualaau criticized the film for being an over-simplified representation of his life that could have been improved with his collaboration,
“I love movies – good movies. … 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,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with.”
Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau posing for a photo April 9, 2005, outside their home in Seattle. (Mark Greenberg, AP)
“I’m still alive and well,” Fualaau told the outlet. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together. … Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story.”
Fualaau stressed that he still lives in the Seattle area, where he settled with Letourneau before their divorce in 2017 and her subsequent death in 2020, and wasn’t difficult to track down.
Fox News Digital has been unable to reach him since the movie hit the streaming platform.
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Anne Bremner, the Seattle attorney who befriended Letourneau after successfully defending the Des Moines Police Department and the Highline School District against a lawsuit brought by Fualaau’s family in 2002, previously told Fox News Digital that “May December” captured the nuance of the couple’s relationship well before Fualaau spoke out against the adaptation.
“Watching that movie, I thought it did well, about the dynamics and the angst Vili and Mary felt about this,” she told Fox News Digital last month. “They had some things in there that were straight out of my case — the pink lipstick, the blush, that [Fualaau is] the seducer. [Fualaau] is so well played by Charles Melton, some people say he should get an Oscar. He’s a child raising children.”
On Wednesday, she said she “didn’t know [Fualaau] wasn’t consulted” about the film.
Charles Melton, who plays a character based on Vili Fualaau, and Natalie Portman, right, were nominated for best actor and actress for their roles in “May December” at Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony. (Getty Images)
“If the movie is based on his life and the Letourneau story, I can understand his frustration in not being consulted. … From my outsider’s view, the movie did appear to be based, at least in part, on the Mary Kay Letourneau story,” she told Fox News Digital. “I can understand his frustration in not being consulted.”
She also struck back at critics online positing that Fualaau was upset because he “wanted to be paid.”
“I thought the sentiments he expressed were commendable,” Bremner said. “If the movie is based on his life, he would want to have input. He’s had a tough go of it all the way around.”
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West
Supreme Court ruling on secretive California gender policy could reshape parent rights fights nationwide
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Parental rights advocates celebrated Monday after the Supreme Court temporarily stopped California from blocking school policies requiring parents to be told when their child identifies as transgender.
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital the high court’s order, in which the three liberal justices dissented, was a “huge win.” The decision marks the latest in a string of victories for conservatives seeking to tighten policies surrounding transgender people, though DeAngelis noted it only applies to California at this stage.
“Parents in California should be very excited that the law that they have on the books to keep secrets from parents will no longer be in effect,” DeAngelis said, adding, “This precedent is surely a sign of good things to come. If there’s a lawsuit that arises in another state, you can be pretty sure that the Supreme Court is going to rule on the side of families.”
The case, Mirabelli v. Bonta, arose from a lawsuit brought by California parents and teachers who argued that the state’s policy violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and religious freedom rights under the First Amendment. The parents said the policy prevented school administrators from telling them about their child’s potential efforts to engage in gender transitioning unless the child consented to it. The policy also required school staff to use a student’s preferred name and pronouns regardless of the parents’ wishes.
A protester holds a transgender pride flag outside the Supreme Court as it hears arguments in 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, an elected Democrat, the parents and teachers appealed to the Supreme Court, and on an expedited and temporary basis, the high court vacated that order while the case proceeds through the lower courts.
“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy,” the high court wrote in the unsigned order. “But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a news conference. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, wrote in a dissent that the temporary order was a sign that the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, sometimes known as a shadow docket, continued to “malfunction.”
Attorneys for California argued that balancing the interests of parents and the “needs of transgender students” presented complex questions.
“In this case, the district court entered a sweeping permanent injunction that would require instant, dramatic changes from the status quo,” California attorneys wrote. “Currently, under California’s laws and constitutional provisions on privacy and antidiscrimination, schools may balance parental interests with students’ particular needs and circumstances, such as the risk of harm upon disclosure of the student’s gender identity without student consent.”
DeAngelis said the Supreme Court’s ruling also bolstered the case for school choice, which allows the government to funnel public education funds to schools parents want to send their children to that are not necessarily the designated public school in their neighborhood.
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Facade of the Supreme Court on Oct. 3, 2024. (Valerie Plesch/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“It would be great if more areas, like California, that are controlled by Democrats had policies like school choice. … You should be able to take your child’s education dollars somewhere else, to a private school that’s more aligned with your values, maybe a charter school,” DeAngelis said.
He added that Monday’s decision was a “wake-up call for school choice policy as well, because parents may be upset about a lot of things in the public schools. Transparency is just the very bare minimum that the public schools in too many places aren’t getting right.”
Carrie Severino, president of the conservative JCN Network, said the 9th Circuit appeared to disregard the Supreme Court’s key ruling last year in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which allowed parents to opt their children out of lessons that involved gender ideology or other sensitive topics based on religious beliefs.
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“The liberal Ninth Circuit disregarded the Court’s ruling in Mahmoud,” Severino wrote. “Today, the justices reaffirmed the principles of its landmark ruling and said that California’s law substantially interferes with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.’”
New York Times columnist David French also agreed with the high court’s decision.
“The idea that a school could withhold such key information about a child from the child’s parents (in the absence of evidence of abuse) was ludicrously unconstitutional from the beginning,” French wrote on X.
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San Francisco, CA
Celebrated San Francisco historic landmark, the Huntington Hotel officially reopens
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — First opened as apartments in 1922 and converted into a hotel two years later, the Huntington was once a playground for socialites and Hollywood stars.
It shut its doors in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remained shuttered until this week, following new owners and a million-dollar, top-to-bottom renovation.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for The Huntington Hotel in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood Monday.
The hotel officially reopened on Sunday.
Mayor Daniel Lurie attended the celebration for the hotel on California Street.
“This is another sign that San Francisco is on the rise, when you have major institutions and major hotels reopening,” Lurie said. “We’re seeing it in Union Square. We’re seeing it now up here on Nob Hill. This is an exciting moment for San Francisco.”
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The hotel, known for its iconic sign, will be restoring the landmark sign to its former glory.
Many say it’s a symbol of what’s going on in San Francisco.
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“It came to symbolize San Francisco’s decline during COVID when it shut and it now, I think, symbolizes San Francisco’s rebirth,” said Greg Flynn, Flynn Group Founder, Chairman, and CEO. “It’s sort of the perfect symbol of it because it’s coming back better than it ever was.”
Alex Bastian, President and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, said hotel occupancy rates are up in 2024.
“Our data team crunched the numbers, and the four-week rolling hotel occupancy rate for San Francisco Bay Area hotels is 55.1 percent as of January 17 of this year. Compare that to January 17 of 2021, during the pandemi,c when it was 13.1 percent.”
Of course, the Super Bowl helped.
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“There’s no marketing campaign better than what we achieved as San Franciscans,” Bastian said. “The mayor and his team really elevated the game. They did an incredible job. We are so fortunate, as a city, because so many came here and they left their hearts here in San Francisco.”
Eyewitness News wasn’t allowed to gather video of the hotel’s features, but the hotel provided renderings of a sample room.
Matthew de Quillien, The Huntington Hotel General Manager, said the hotel has 143 rooms, many of them suites. Also, the Nob Hill Spa, Arabella’s Cocktail Salo,n and a reopening of The Big Four Restaurant, featuring its famous chicken pot pie.
“Our owner was able to find the original recipe from the 70’s and we remastered it and we’re … serving it to our guests,” de Quillien said.
He said rates range from $600 a night to $7,000 a night for its Presidential suite.
The restaurant opens to the public on March 17.
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
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Denver, CO
Former Avs defenseman launches beer brand in Denver
While most people know beers as “cold ones,” Tyson Barrie opts for a different name.
“We’ve always just called beers chilly ones,” the former Colorado Avalanche defenseman said.
Now, Barrie hopes his moniker goes mainstream with his beer brand Chilly Ones, which made its U.S. debut weeks ago in Colorado. He plans to move to the Centennial State from his home country of Canada come fall to build it out.
So far, the beer is in about 200 businesses across the state, mostly liquor stores like Bonnie Brae and Argonaut, but also eateries such as Oskar Blues.
The light lager is available in cans at 3% alcohol by volume. The less-than-light ABV is popular in Australia and some parts of Europe, he said, but nothing serves that segment in the U.S.
Barrie also said the brand has a nonalcoholic version “in the tanks and ready to go” at Sleeping Giant Brewing Co., the Denver facility where Chilly Ones is made. He said it’s one of the only booze-free options that could “trick” him, and he expects the version to be available by April.
“If you look at all the data that we’re seeing, these two categories – the nonalc and the low – seem to be two of the only ones in the alcohol space that are growing,” Barrie said.
Chilly Ones has been available in Canada since late 2025, and he said a 4.5% to 5% edition is also in the works, though that one won’t hit the shelves for months.
“From what we can see in Canada, people question the 3%. They say it’s not enough,” he said through a grin. “Then in the U.S., people aren’t questioning it at all. They really liked a little bit less and the moderation factor to it.”
That’s why he thinks the low-carb, zero sugar, under 100 calorie drink is a perfect fit for Denver. With the city’s storied history in craft beer combined with a more conscious, active lifestyle, it’s the perfect stateside launching point for his brand, Barrie believes.
Drafted by the Avs and playing in the city from 2011 through 2019, his preexisting connections also were a selling point.
“Every occasion is a little bit different, whether you’re parenting or you’re at a concert or you’ve got to get up early or you’re having two after work and you want to drive,” he said, explaining why there will be multiple versions of the drink available.
“It’s pick your own adventure. We’re not going to judge you,” he continued. “If you want to celebrate and get absolutely hammered, we’ll give you that option too. It’s just you can do it a little bit healthier.”
The idea came to Barrie when he had “a dozen” or so chilly ones during a night with friends years ago. In his phone’s notes app, he wrote that he would one day start a beverage brand with his NHL buddies and call it his colloquial name for beer.
He was still playing in the league at the point, but in 2024, two years after, somebody from the beverage world “very serendipitously” reached out to see if Barrie would be interested in starting a wine or whiskey company.
“And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’d do a beer,’” he recalled.
He was still in the NHL playing with the Nashville Predators but nearing the end of his career. The now-34-year-old gathered several of his fellow skaters, including Avs star Nathan MacKinnon, and other career connections like Lumineers frontman Wesley Schultz, and Chilly Ones was born.
Having that post-playing career journey already laid out has been challenging but worth it, he said.
“I have a lot of friends who have retired, and you struggle with a bit of purpose and you wake up and you’re just kind of looking around, not sure what to do with yourself,” he said. “So I feel grateful. I didn’t even have any time to reset. I was just kind of thrown in the fire.”
Barrie and Chilly Ones raised an undisclosed amount from friends and family to start the brand and are in the midst of a more institutional round.
He and Chilly Ones have no plans to venture outside the state in the short-term. He said he, Chief Operating Officer Kimberley Kainth and CEO Matthew Clayton want to test the market for all three options and get feedback before expanding elsewhere.
Longmont-based Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis is an adviser, along with White Claw and Mike’s Hard Lemonade alum Todd Anderson.
“We have a team that we really, really trust who has scaled and built products in Colorado and moved out,” Barrie said. “We want to get our feet under us in Colorado and then we’ll start to really look at who’s next.”
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