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Flowers in the Attic: The Origin

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Is ‘Flowers in the Attic: The Origin’ Based on a True Story?

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Flowers In The Attic: The Origin' On Lifetime, A Prequel To V.C. Andrews' Novels That Sets Up The Creepy Story Of The Foxworth Family

Children of the ’70s and ’80s grew up on V.C. Andrews’ creepy novels, most notably Flowers In The Attic, the 1979 book about a group of four siblings who are locked away in an attic in their grandparents’ home for years. The children’s own mother, Corinne, has locked them there because she plans to ask for her inheritance from her estranged father, Malcolm Foxworth, who won’t give her the money if he knows that she has had children. (Because… spoiler alert, Corinne’s husband was also her uncle, making her children the products of incest.) During the time while the children are locked away, the eldest two fall… in… love. The theme of incest in the books is like, THE BIG THING, in case you couldn’t guess, and millions of us read these bestsellers as pre-teens, rapt and like, wishing all the best for sibling sweethearts Chris and Cathy Dollanganger.

Now, Lifetime brings us Flowers In The Attic: The Origin, a new series that acts as a sort of prequel to the stories in the Andrews books. The series tells the story of the Dollanganger’s grandfather, Malcolm Foxworth (Max Irons), the heir to a massive fortune whose titular attic housed his horny grandchildren in the original story. When Max meets Olivia Winfield (Jemima Rooper), they marry in the early 1900s and make a home at Foxworth’s family estate in Virginia. The only sex the couple has is forced upon Olivia, and it’s usually inside Malcolm’s mother’s bedroom. Olivia is unable to bear him a daughter which Max desperately wants so that he can name her Corinne, after his mother. Rightfully creeped out by her husband, she plans to get revenge on him and his effing gross family.

Is Flowers in the Attic: The Origin Based on a True Story?

Oh, thank God, no. No, Flowers In The Attic: The Origin is not based on a true story. V.C. Andrews claims that her original books were been inspired by some real events (her pitch letter to a publisher claimed the story was “not truly fiction”), and many speculate that it was inspired by a story she heard of children who spent several years locked in an attic. But the Lifetime series and it continuation of the story of the Foxworth family and the Dollanganger children are not based on anyone real.

New episodes of Flowers In The Attic: The Origin air Saturdays at 8/7c on Lifetime through the month of July.