Mary Kay Letourneau's Ex Vili Fualaau Says He Wasn't Contacted for “May December”: 'They Chose to Do a Ripoff'

"I'm offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me," said Vili Fualaau

Vili Fualaau, the ex-husband of Mary Kay Letourneau, is speaking out about May December, the new film loosely inspired by his own highly publicized experience.

Fualaau, now 40, told The Hollywood Reporter that he was never contacted by director Todd Haynes, screenwriter Samy Burch or Charles Melton, who plays a character who shares many similarities to Fualaau.

"I’m still alive and well. If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story," said Fualaau.

He added, "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."

Fualaau said "my story is not nearly as simple as" May December portrays it.

Spokespersons for Netflix did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment. A rep for Haynes had no comment.

Letourneau, who died of cancer at 58 in 2020, was a Seattle school teacher sentenced to more than seven years in prison for child rape after she began sexually abusing her sixth-grade student, Fualaau, in 1996. She became pregnant with Fualaau's children twice before he was 15, despite court orders to keep them apart.

Related: Awkward Interview That Loosely Inspired Scene In Netflix’s May December Resurfaces: ‘This Is Getting Weird’

Fualaau was an adult by the time Letourneau was released from prison, and he petitioned the court to allow them to see each other. The restraining order against Letourneau was dropped, but she remained a registered sex offender in Washington state until her death.

Despite the criminal history of their relationship, the couple married in 2005. They broke up in 2017 after Fualaau filed for legal separation. However, as the split proceeded, they still lived together. Fualaau was by Letourneau's side when she died, and she left much of her estate to him in her will.

May December, meanwhile, is set in Savannah, Georgia, and stars Julianne Moore as a woman named Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who, when she was 36, began an affair with a 13-year-old at a pet shop where they worked, sparking a tabloid obsession.

The two married after her release from prison, and Joe Yoo (Melton), now 36 in the film and preparing to be an empty-nester as they send their younger kids to college, maintains that the relationship was always consensual.

That is, until a Hollywood actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), comes to town to research their relationship as she prepares to portray Gracie in a movie about the scandal. Elizabeth's prodding into their lives causes Joe to rethink his dynamic with Gracie.

Related: How the May December Wardrobe Spirals from ‘Delicate Princess’ to Creepy ‘Mimic’ (Exclusive)

At the New York Film Festival in September, screenwriter Burch explained how the story stemmed from the real events.

"I really wanted a fictional story that dealt with this tabloid culture of the '90s that has kind of seemingly led into this true-crime biopic world we're in now, and kind of question that transition and why we want to keep recreating these stories," she said. "That was the real jumping off point for me."

"All of these stories like this that are in the ether are just completely embedded in everyone's cultural history," Burch added.

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At that press conference, director Haynes said Moore, 62, took some inspiration from Letourneau when building the character, including giving Gracie a noticeable lisp.

"Also this idea of how does this kind of original relationship occur? What is the myth these two people tell each other about the roles they're playing?" he continued of the subject matter. "She's not a pedophile, this woman; she doesn't have a history of going after every little teenage boy. There's something very specific that happened to these two people."

"But it's shrouded in a fantasy," continued Haynes, "which is that she is the princess that needs to be rescued from the domestic tower, and he's the young, virile knight, almost like a Greco-Roman young knight, who's gonna come in with all this sexual virility and power and beauty and save her. And so she plays the little girl."

Last month, Melton, 33, told The Hollywood Reporter about the "complex" story and characters in May December, which landed him a Golden Globe nomination for supporting actor.

"Samy Burch’s script, there’s just so much in between the text," he said, "and it’s so vast, in exploring these complex characters, and the complexity of who Joe is and what he represents, and just how he’s had to navigate his life really being influenced by having a kid at such a young age, and public perception, with tabloid culture, and just really leading up to him being an empty nester. There’s so many things to look at and understand."

"That really was exciting for me: understanding repression and loneliness, and how certain emotions can live in the body, and how that would translate in storytelling," said Melton. "It really just came down to prepping a lot...."

May December is on Netflix now.

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