- Georgian chess champion files a defamation lawsuit against Netflix for wrongly portraying her in their hit series.
- Netflix accused of being grossly sexist and belittling, and manifestly false in their TV series.
- Nona Gaprindashvili filed her defamation lawsuit against Netflix in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles.
Georgian chess superstar Nona Gaprindashvili has filed a $5-million defamation lawsuit against Netflix for being ‘grossly sexist’ and depicting her as Russian in the 2021 hit series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’.
Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to achieve the status of an international chess grandmaster and the fifth women’s world chess champion, has filed a lawsuit against Netflix over a reference to her in top show, featuring a fictional prodigy who goes on to beat Russia’s finest players in Moscow during the 1960s.
“In one of the episodes dating back to 1968, a commentator says that chess player Nona Gaprindashvili has never faced men. But this is wrong,” lawyer Maya Mtsariashvili, a partner at BLB, a Georgian law firm representing the player, said today.
The lawyer added that their work on the lawsuit had begun soon after the Netflix TV series release.
Gaprindashvili, 80 has taken exception to a part in the final part of the series that describes the “only unusual thing about her” being her gender.
“And even that’s not unique in Russia,” the segment of the episode continues. “There’s Nona Gaprindashvili, but she’s the female world champion and has never faced men.”
In her defamation lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, Gaprindashvili is said to have described that as “manifestly false, as well as being grossly sexist and belittling,” and stated that by 1968, she had faced at least 59 male chess players.
The complaint continues: “Netflix brazenly and deliberately lied about Gaprindashvili’s achievements for the cheap and cynical purpose of ‘heightening the drama’ by making it appear that its fictional hero had managed to do what no other woman, including Gaprindashvili, had done.”
The lawsuit also says Gaprindashvili is insulted by the fact that Netflix described her as a Russian player.
Gaprindashvili’s representatives also say that the description of the Georgian as Russian is a case of “piling on additional insult to injury” and makes a number of claims about the relationship between the two countries.
A Netflix spokesperson stated: “Netflix has only the utmost respect for Ms Gaprindashvili and her illustrious career, but we believe this claim has no merit and will vigorously defend the case.”
IHE Ị GA-Ewepụ na edemede a:
- Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to achieve the status of an international chess grandmaster and the fifth women’s world chess champion, has filed a lawsuit against Netflix over a reference to her in top show, featuring a fictional prodigy who goes on to beat Russia’s finest players in Moscow during the 1960s.
- In her defamation lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court in Los Angeles, Gaprindashvili is said to have described that as “manifestly false, as well as being grossly sexist and belittling,” and stated that by 1968, she had faced at least 59 male chess players.
- Gaprindashvili’s representatives also say that the description of the Georgian as Russian is a case of “piling on additional insult to injury” and makes a number of claims about the relationship between the two countries.
