Dirty John S2: Which scenes from The Betty Broderick Story happened in real life?
The second season of anthology series Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story has been getting everyone talking since it landed on Netflix earlier this month. The second instalment of the series tells the shocking true story of seemingly perfect Californian suburban housewife Betty Broderick, whose gritty divorce ended in a double murder.
The series is true crime, so just like season 1 it's based on real-life people and events with a little artistic license. But it turns out there wasn't as much dramatising as you'd expect.
Here are the scenes that actually happened in real life exactly as you see them on the show.
Betty really did drive her car into Dan's front door
In episode 1 Betty shows up at Dan's front door, demanding to speak to him and see their children, but Dan refuses and turns her away from the house. As a result, moments later Betty rams her huge car straight into Dan's front door, ripping it from it's hinges and causing significant damage to the front of the house, and her car. As a result of the incident Dan uses his legal clout and medical license to have Betty committed to a psychiatric facility for three days.
Famously, this event actually took place, and Dan did have betty committed to a mental-health facility for several days. In an interview in 1989 Betty talked about the event, saying she had no regrets.
"I’d do it again, only I’d do it better. I was mad! He had just stolen everything from me," Betty told the San Diego Reader.
Betty's horrifying phone call with her son really happened
In episode 5 there's a scene where Betty calls the house, presumably to leave another angry voicemail (as she had got into the habit of doing), but her eldest son Danny picks up and Betty offloads her anger and frustration on him in a disturbing phone call.
In the call Danny begs Betty to stop using "bad words," and pleads with her to be nicer so that he and his brother can live with her. Betty continues to use offensive language, telling her 11-year old son his dad was "f***ng his secretary!"
The real life call was recorded by Dan Broderick and used in court proceedings during the divorce. The Dirty John scene was based almost word-for-word on the recorded call between Betty and her son.
Betty overheard Dan calling Linda Kolkena "beautiful"
During episode 3 we see the scene where a happily married Betty overhears Dan saying of someone "She's just so beautiful".
Later in the episode Betty confronts Dan, saying that he never calls anyone that, but although Dan admits he was talking about another woman, he quickly makes excuses claiming he was talking "some new girl in the office" who a colleague "has a thing for." He even pretends not to know her name; "something with an L. Laura, maybe."
During her interview with the San Diego Reader, the real-life Betty spoke about this moment calling it a "crucial event" in the story.
"I have lots of friends who are real pretty," Betty told the publication. "One is a former Miss America. I mean, she gets out of the shower beautiful. And yet I’d never heard Dan say, 'Wow, she's pretty' about anybody."
Dan charged Betty for using offensive language in phone calls
In episode 5 Betty begins taking out her anger and frustration by leaving abusive voicemails on Dan and Linda's phone. The episode, aptly named 'Scream Therapy', is almost entirely focussed around Betty's infamous abusive voicemails and vandalism of Dan and Linda's home.
In response, Dan begins charging Betty $100 for each swear word used on the calls, telling her, "Every time you call me you're violating a court order. This doesn't seem to matter to you - maybe this will..."
Dan's fines happened in real life, according to an LA Times article from 1990 "Dan began to withhold $100 [from her monthly allowance] for every obscene word she used, $250 for each time she set foot on his property, $500 for every entry into his house and $1,000 for every time she took one of the children without his permission."
Betty told the LA Times that one month Dan fined her so many times that her monthly allowance payments totalled "minus $1,300".
Betty smeared cake all over Dan and Linda's bedroom
In one scene soon after Betty and Dan have split, she arrives at his and Linda's house to pick up her sons for the afternoon and discovers a Boston cream pie on the counter in the kitchen. Clearly unimpressed, Betty asks her daughter about the cake, "Boston Cream pie? What's the occasion?.. Someone just made Dad's favourite for no reason?"
In the next scene Betty takes the cake upstairs to Dan and Linda's bedroom and smears it all over the room, over the bed and the clothes in the wardrobe.
Speaking to the San Diego Reader in 1989, Dan Broderick described this event, saying, "I remember a Boston cream pie that my girlfriend [Kolkena] made for us. She [Betty] came and just took it and smeared it all over the bedroom and my clothes and my drawers. I mean - crazy stuff! Absolutely crazy stuff."
Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story is out on Netflix now.
Cosmopolitan UK's September issue is out now and available for purchase online and via Readly. You can also SUBSCRIBE HERE or read on Apple News+. Find our podcast 'All The Way With...' on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the Acast app.
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