BBC Drops “True Story” ‘Dopesick’ Billing After ‘Child Reindeer’ Saga

EXCLUSIVE: As echoes of the Child Reindeer scandal proceed reverberating across the trade, the BBC has moved to nix a “true story” billing for Dopesick on iPlayer.

The British broadcaster has been streaming Hulu’s sequence since April, describing it because the “true story of the sellers, medical doctors and the billion greenback drug that fuelled America’s lethal opioid dependancy.”

The BBC has eliminated the phrases “true story” from the outline in latest days, nonetheless, and now payments it as “a narrative” in regards to the opioid disaster.

The company acknowledged that Dopesick is “impressed by precise occasions,” however that “sure characters, characterizations, incidents, places, and dialogue had been imagined or invented for functions of dramatization.”

It’s not clear what prompted the modification but it surely comes months after the saga over Child Reindeer, produced by BBC Studios-owned manufacturing firm Clerkenwell Movies.

Richard Gadd’s hit sequence was described as a “true story” by Netflix, regardless of an addendum within the credit that states that parts of the story are fictionalized for dramatic functions.

Netflix is now combating a lawsuit from Fiona Harvey, who argues she is the sufferer of “the largest lie in TV historical past” after claiming she was portrayed as stalker Martha. Netflix is vigorously defending the $170M lawsuit.

Netflix UK chief Anne Mensah backed Child Reindeer on the Edinburgh TV Pageant final month. “I stand by the very fact we made the present,” stated Mensah.

“It’s a drama, not a documentary, and that can be remembered.” She added Netflix takes safeguarding in all of its productions “extremely significantly,” and famous an enormous uptick in males calling sexual abuse hotlines within the wake of the present.