Cheryl McCollum

Lifetime has this sort of I am or I was franchise where a woman that was famous or infamous years later reflects back on the story that everybody thinks they knew.

and tells it, you know, pretty much entirely from her point of view.

And that doesn't mean we didn't have other sources.

But this is this is the story that she wanted to tell.

So we felt all of us, you know, felt very responsible for being true to that.

Right.

And how did she how did you come to meet her?

How did this the project actually was somebody at Lifetime, an executive that I work with frequently who.

who I think they hooked up through Instagram, believe it or not.

I think, you know, I personally feel like that's how we heal through anything, right?

But she, I was so really moved by that, which I was not expecting necessarily, because I feel like there's a nuance in this relationship

you know that complication of how they always made amy fisher look like the victim yes and then at the same time demonized her so it's like all the women in this story just got the worst and yeah but especially mary jo but especially mary jo yep i mean beyond everything else you know she's still got a bullet in her head

It's unfathomable.

So let's talk about the actual case a little bit.

So how true is the portrayal in the film of her dealing with the issues of Joey not being home or her being alone with the kids and him not growing up and his denial of the affair?

Because I felt like those are the things that somehow...

No one ever talked about like they never he was just sort of excused for this behavior and almost championed, you know, the moment when they say she says that they threw a party for him when he got out of jail, serving time for statutory rape.

I know it's I don't think that would happen today, you know, because we're going back about 34 years, 35 years now.

So for reasons that you and I and the audience have lived through during this time, you know, that wouldn't happen.

But it did.