Michael Peterson and his children are still trying to find some sense of normalcy after losing Kathleen Peterson 20 years ago.
So no, he and his four kids, Margaret, Martha, Todd and Clayton, won't be watching the HBO Max adaptation of The Staircase documentary. "I was there when she died," he told This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on May 25. "I definitely do not want to watch a fictionalized account, seeing her die three times."
Michael said that his children told him they didn't "even think of watching" the series when they first heard about it, saying that they're still trying to move on after becoming public figures through his murder trial. "They suffered more than I did," he said, adding that their stepmother's death is going to live with them "forever" but they still want the attention to die down. As he told Holly and Phil, "They don't want this in their lives anymore."
As for Michael, he understands the interest in the case but doesn't "give a damn" what people think. He explained that he only agreed to the This Morning interview to warn viewers that he thinks the HBO Max series "is not terribly accurate."
Michael and the filmmakers behind the original documentary take issue with HBO Max's depiction of his relationship with editor Sophie Brunet.
In the show, Michael, portrayed by Colin Firth, and Sophie, portrayed by Juliette Binoche, begin writing letters while he's in prison and she's editing The Staircase. The show suggests that Sophie and director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade were biased to Michael and decided to leave out key scenes that could've swayed audiences of his guilt.
However, Sophie and Jean deny that their friendship with Michael influenced this decision, and so does Michael. He told Phil and Holly, "To suggest that she had secured the documentary to make it look that way—no, she didn't do that. And Jean, who was the director, never would have allowed that."
In addition to addressing his relationship with Sophie, Michael spoke about his decision to enter an Alford plea, in which he entered a guilty plea and maintained his innocence, in 2017. Michael stated that he and his lawyer felt that they'd done all they could and didn't want to put his family through more strife.
"My children had to live through all of this and it was terrible for them," he said, adding that he was sentenced to time served. "So to me, that was just the better thing."
New episodes of The Staircase stream Thursdays on HBO Max.