- The Thing About Pam is based on the true story of Pam Hupp and the wild case of Betsy Faria
- Renée Zellweger looks unrecognizable as Hupp
- The show is streaming now and will feature 6 episodes in the limited series
Despite his alibi and major lack of evidence such as no blood or any DNA evidence at the time of the crime, Russ Faria was charged in front of a jury in 2013 for the murder of his wife, Betsy Faria. Now, almost a decade later, the wild story has become a TV show starring the A-list actress, Renée Zellweger. But how much of the story is true?
According to the real Russ, The Thing About Pam is pretty dead on!
The wild story of Betsy Faria's murder
After his conviction in 2013, Russ Faria was able to walk free in 2015 after a substantial amount of evidence not included in the original trial. And while the show seems a bit too out there for it to be accurate, that's farthest from the truth!
In The Thing About Pam, we see Zellweger portray the real-life Pamela Hupp, who claimed she was just a good friend of Betsy, before going on to stab her 55 times.
Despite the incredibly dark and sad true story, the show pokes fun at the real-life Hupp and her outlandish lies.
"We wanted to be really careful with how we navigated the tongue-in-cheek because it's tragic," Zellweger told Newsweek. There's a lot of suffering and loss involved in this case, obviously. So you want to be careful and honourable to the memory of Betsy Faria and what her family experienced."
Funny enough, Hupp isn't in prison because of this case, but rather for fatally shooting Louis Gumpenberger in 2016. Following her conviction, lawyers re-opened the Faria case, and found her eventually guilty of the murder, adding on to a sentence without the option of parole.
Also Interesting:
It was also revealed that researchers for the show spent upwards of 60 hours with the real-life Russ to get all of the details of the truth about Pam.
"I think they've done a really good job of staying true to the story as much as they could," Russ told Newsweek.
While some moments were of course exaggerated for TV, the story, convictions and details of the crime itself are 100% true. Pam really did write a faux letter and frame Russ for the murder of his wife, and she really did do it for the insurance money.
Additionally, Hupp went on to murder another man, and once again tried to frame Russ for it. Wild! Although the series implies she also killed her mother, Hupp is still set to stand trial in October 2022.
There's only one episode left in the crazy series, and you can catch The Thing About Pam on NBC or AmazonPrime Tuesday, April 12!