'Blonde' — How Much of Netflix's Controversial Marilyn Monroe Movie Is True?

Shaw Family Archives/Getty; Netflix Marilyn Monroe (L); Ana de Armas in Blonde (2022)

Ana de Armas brings Marilyn Monroe's plight to life in Netflix's controversial new film Blonde, which isn't intended to be a historically accurate biopic.

The NC-17-rated movie, directed by Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly), is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates and tells a fictionalized story of Monroe navigating a grueling Hollywood experience. It's told in a provocative, surreal way to depict what Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, might have been going through internally before her sudden death 60 years ago at 36.

Dominik told Deadline, "I know an awful lot about Marilyn Monroe now. I've read all the major stuff. There's over a thousand books written about her, and I haven't read a thousand, but I've read all of the big hits. I've read all that stuff, and I've met people that knew her and I've been to most of the places (that you can still get into) where she lived. I've read all the biographies of all the other people that were in her life too so I'm aware of what they think happened in most of the situations in her life."

"And I'm aware of how that's different to the book Blonde. I did all that research and I used very little of it in the movie," he added. "Blonde the book was pretty much the bible for the film."

Additionally, Oates told The New Yorker that the film adaptation is a "work of art" and decidedly "not a feel-good movie."

"Many films about Marilyn Monroe are kind of upbeat and have a lot of music and singing. She's very beautiful and sweet. This one is probably closer to what she actually experienced," said Oates. "The last few days of her life were brutal."

Read on for some of the biggest liberties Blonde takes that deviate from Monroe's known true story.

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Monroe's fashion and films

De Armas said she watched Monroe movies hundreds of times to painstakingly recreate scenes for Blonde. "Andrew had two monitors, the real Marilyn in the scene and me. And everything, every angle, had to be exactly the same. So that was me watching these films hundreds and hundreds of times," she told AnOther magazine.

Additionally, Dominik explained to Deadline that he was "incredibly lucky" to get the rights to Monroe's hits like 1959's Some Like It Hot and 1950's All About Eve to feature in Blonde.

"The hardest things to get were permissions. ... I got legal permission to do everything I wanted to do. I never thought that would happen. I did have to shoot backup versions. Like, for the scene with Ana and Tony Curtis, I had to shoot that with an actor playing Tony in case we couldn't get permission, but we got it. Same for All About Eve, but I really wanted George Sanders."

Additionally, the costume department recreated exact hair and makeup looks from Monroe's iconic career. De Armas underwent two-plus hours of transformations each morning to become the legendary actress with help from Jaime Leigh McIntosh and Tina Roesler Kerwin from the hair and makeup department.

Kerwin told Variety the goal was to "find our Marilyn in Ana and not put Marilyn's hair and makeup on Ana, but to define our Marilyn and define her as best as we could."

RELATED: See Ana de Armas Side-by-Side with Marilyn Monroe in Netflix's Blonde

Shaw Family Archives/Getty; Netflix

Did Monroe have an abortion?

Blonde features a disturbing abortion scene and recounts the aftermath the character feels as a result. While it's long been speculated that Monroe may have had one or more abortions in her life, it's never been confirmed.

In an interview with Sight & Sound, Dominik said he was "not concerned with being tasteful" in how he portrayed the abortion sequence.

"Well, she wants to have a child because she wants to rescue herself. Her own experience of motherhood is disastrous, based on her own mother. But that baby is real to her, and so that's why you see the baby. I don't think the scene would feel as real [otherwise]," he said. "And also, she's having a reluctant abortion. So it would be pretty horrible. I'm trying to create her experience. I'm trying to put the audience through the same thing. I'm not concerned with being tasteful."

Separately, Monroe did suffer multiple miscarriages and pregnancy losses during her marriage to Arthur Miller, which the movie touches on.

Was Monroe ever in a throuple?

In Blonde, Monroe enters a three-way relationship with Charlie "Cass" Chaplin Jr. and Edward "Eddy" G. Robinson Jr. — which was never confirmed in real life.

Rumor has it that Marilyn did had an affair with Chaplin Jr. in 1947. The relationship allegedly ended when Charlie caught Marilyn in his brother Sydney's bed. Chaplin made reference to the affair in his 1960 autobiography, and Anthony Summers mentions the relationship in his book Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe.

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Ana de Armas

Monroe's rumored relationship with a President

Monroe's most infamous rumored affairs were with President John F. Kennedy and, later, his brother Robert F. Kennedy. Some have even suggested that her relationship with the two men played a role in her untimely death.

Rumors of an affair were spurred in part by her sultry "Happy Birthday" performance for the commander in chief at his 45th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, just months before her death.

Monroe's biographer James Spada told PEOPLE back in 2012 that while he doesn't believe there's any proof the Kennedys were responsible for Monroe's death, "it was pretty clear that Marilyn had had sexual relations with both Bobby and Jack."

In Blonde, de Armas' Monroe character is seen being forced to perform oral sex on the president. De Armas told Variety about depicting the sex scenes and rape scenes in frank ways.

"We're telling her story from her point of view. I'm making people feel what she felt. When we had to shoot these kinds of scenes, like the one with Kennedy, it was difficult for everybody," she said. "But at the same time, I knew I had to go there to find the truth."

M. Garrett/Murray Garrett/Getty

Monroe's shocking death left countless questions

While Monroe's cause of death is believed to have been from a drug overdose, like shown in Blonde, it was also ruled a "probable suicide." According to the coroner's toxicology report, the official cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning. The toxicologist determined that Monroe ingested a lethal dose of Nembutal, a drug that is used to treat anxiety, as well as a large dose of chloral hydrate, a drug used as a sedative.

Despite Monroe's death being ruled an overdose, mysterious circumstances surrounding her passing have fostered conspiracy theories that foul play was involved.

Film scholar Steven Cohan told Smithsonian Magazine that her death is "the gift that keeps on giving because there's no smoking gun. The autopsy continues to be raised, but it never answers any questions. … And the fact that she died in her [mid-30s] meant that she never grew old. … It's another reason that she remains forever, forever young" in the public eye.

Blonde is now streaming on Netflix.