The family of Tammy Wynette’s fifth husband, George Richey, is not happy with the way he was portrayed in the Showtime miniseries George & Tammy.
Richey’s widow, Sheila Slaughter Richey, and her daughter, Tatum, filed a lawsuit against the network on Thursday, January 31, slamming the show for conveying “a negative and disparaging depiction” of Richey. (Richey died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2010 at age 74.)
“The series depicts Richey as a devious husband who abused Wynette and Richey’s prior wife, facilitated and encouraged Wynette’s addiction to prescription painkillers and engaged in financial and managerial manipulation of Wynette,” reads Slaughter Richey’s court filing, obtained by Us Weekly.
The lawsuit also noted that George & Tammy creator and showrunner Abe Sylvia stated that “Richey is ‘the villain’ of the series” and the “driving force behind the drama.”
Wynette was married to Richey from 1978 until her death at age 55 in 1998. She was previously married to Euple Byrd from 1960 to 1965, Don Chapel from 1967 to 1968, George Jones from 1969 to 1975 and Michael Tomlin in 1976.
According to the court docs, Wynette and Jones’ daughter, Georgette, previously signed a nondisparagement agreement about Richey and his family following a legal battle over her 2011 memoir, The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George. The book served as the basis for George & Tammy, which debuted on Showtime in December 2022.
Per the agreement, Georgette and her half-sister Jackie Daly “were obligated ‘not to make any statements, written or verbal, or cause or encourage others to make any statements, written or verbal, that defame, disparage or in any way criticize the personal or business reputation, practices or conduct of Sheila Slaughter Richey, Tatum Keys Richey and/or (the deceased) George Richey, in perpetuity.’”
The lawsuit argues that Showtime “knew or should have known of Georgette’s contractual commitment” to Richey and his family members.
A spokesperson for the network reacted to the lawsuit in a statement to Variety, saying, “We see no plausible basis for any claim against Showtime.”
In her book, Georgette, 53, alleged that Richey was abusive to Wynette throughout their marriage and attempted to keep her away from family and close friends. She also claimed that Wynette told her she faked her infamous 1978 kidnapping attempt in order to hide bruises caused by Richey.
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The kidnapping incident was depicted in the sixth episode of George & Tammy, which starred Jessica Chastain as Wynette, Michael Shannon as Jones and Steve Zahn as Richey. In the show, the Wynette character explicitly says that Richey caused her bruises and implies that he encouraged her to invent the kidnapping story.
Slaughter Richey and her daughter are asking the court to block Showtime from streaming George & Tammy on any platform or licensing it for views in any other medium, including cable and DVD.
“If Showtime continues streaming the series, Sheila and Tatum will suffer irreparable harm to their reputation, name and standing in the community, and will be impossible to rectify or measure with damages,” the lawsuit argued. “The series has already caused Sheila and Tatum to suffer irreparable harm to their reputation, name and standing in the community, but to allow Showtime to continue the Series will only compound the damages suffered by them and it will be impossible to rectify or measure that harm with damages.”
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