What Aileen Wuornos was like in real life, and how this compares to The Lizzie Borden Story

Aileen Wuornos has strangely become one of the biggest and most interesting characters in the latest Monster series, which was supposed to be about a different person altogether, Lizzie Borden. But how accurate is her depiction? Here’s what she was like in real life, from someone who actually knew her. 

Sarah Paulson takes on the role of Wuornos in the true crime drama, which is about Lizzie Borden, a 19th-century woman who was accused and later acquitted of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts. 

Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for murdering seven men between 1989 and 1990 while doing street prostitution along Florida highways, was added into the show to compare female violence in the 19th century vs the 20th century, and explore the idea of female rage. And unlike Lizzie, it gets Wuornos’ character spot on. 

Credit: Netflix

Nick Broomfield, a filmmaker who interviewed her for years, said Wuornos “would get into a screaming black temper” but “when she wasn’t in those extreme moods, there was an incredible humanity to her,” a CNN transcript reveals. This is exactly what we saw in Monster: her extreme mood swings and the contrast between her rage and empathy. 

Monster depicted Wuornos as an extremely volatile woman with explosive anger and aggression, yet also explored her emotional vulnerability and affectionate, loving side, which are all well-documented real characteristics of hers. 

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In another interview, the filmmaker said about Wuornos’ crimes: “I think this anger developed inside her… And finally exploded. Into incredible violence.”

Credit: Netflix

Describing her more human side, he said: “I had always believed that there was something quite honest about Aileen.” Another good quote from him that describes his personality is: “Aileen had always struck me as being somebody who basically always said something true.”

Broomfield concluded in an interview with The Independent that she was “clearly of unsound mind”.

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