What is Tell Them You Love Me about? New Netflix doc explained

A new documentary called Tell Them You Love Me has landed on Netflix, examining a truly stranger than fiction case — here’s what it’s about and everything you need to know about the true story behind it. 

Amid the new true crime out this month, Hulu is leading the charge. Next week, the streaming service is releasing Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown, a new docu-series about the Jonestown massacre.

Hulu is also releasing Perfect Wife, deep diving into the controversial Sherri Papini case that rocked the nation when it first unfolded in 2016.

But Netflix still has plenty of aces up its sleeve. Following the explosive success of Dancing for the Devil, it’s offering US viewers the chance to see Tell Them You Love Me for the first time. Warning: Some may find this content distressing. 

What is Tell Them You Love Me about?

Tell Them You Love Me examines the controversial affair between white professor Anna Stubblefield and her non-verbal Black student, Derrick Johnson. The film touches upon numerous issues such as consent, gender, disability, and race. 

Directed by Nick August-Perna and produced by Louis Theroux under his Mindhouse banner, the documentary initially examines Derrick’s upbringing. Being diagnosed as nonverbal with cerebral palsy, his mother and brother, Daisy and Dr John Johnson, raised him with love and care. 

As Daisy explains in footage shown in Tell Them You Love Me, other than the odd word, he “mostly communicates with his eyes and hands.” John says that he noticed a deeper level of recognition with his brother when they would lock eyes, seeing Derrick develop his own personality as he grew up. 

John first came across Anna while studying for his PhD at Rutgers University, where she was teaching in the American Studies doctoral program. She was discussing methods for people with non-verbal disabilities to express themselves with what’s known as facilitated communication.

Over the next few years, Anna used this method to work closely with Derrick. But what people didn’t know is that Anna, who was married with two kids, had started a sexual relationship with her student. 

His family had already seen some warning signs that things weren’t right, with Anna infiltrating their lives and suggesting in numerous instances that she knew what was better for him. When she announced the news to Daisy and John, Anna claimed she and Derrick were in love and that Derrick should live independently. 

We later learn that facilitated communication is a discredited technique. In 2018, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association said in a statement that there’s “extensive scientific evidence… that messages are authored by the ‘facilitator’ rather than the person with a disability.”

So while Anna was claiming that Derrick gave consent to their encounters, experts and his family believe she had been leading his replies, and that she was abusing a man who one doctor said “has the mental capacity of an 18-month-old.”

This led to a criminal trial in 2015, which resulted in her being sentenced to 12 years in prison for first-degree sexual assault. However, this was overturned in 2017, with a second trial sentencing her to time served. 

Alongside the issues of consent and abuse of people with disabilities, Tell Them You Love Me explores racial biases in society. Even after Anna’s conviction, many still didn’t see her in the same way they might have if the situation were different. 

“The harrowing tale of abuse is made darker by the witnesses and experts who explain that Derrick may not have had agency to consent — and who are still unable to see this educated white middle-class woman as a perpetrator of sexual violence,” wrote The Guardian’s Leila Latif.

Latif highlighted the example of Dr Howard Shane, who concluded from his own analysis that Derrick had the “mental capacity of a six to 12-month-old child” and that Anna was “having conversations with herself.”

Despite these findings, he said: “I never thought she was a predator. She truly believed what she was doing was in Derrick’s best interest.”

Who’s in Tell Them You Love Me?

One of the most troubling aspects of Tell Them You Love Me is the appearance of Anna Stubblefield, as she still believes she’s done nothing wrong. Derrick’s mother and brother, Daisy and Dr John Johnson, also share their side of the story in the documentary. 

When asked by the interviewer if she thinks Anna believed Derrick was typing those messages to her, Daisy replies, “Yes, in her wicked mind.” She later says, “People don’t think that there was damage done. Yes it was, and it’s still going on.”

Earlier on in the Netflix doc, John recalls how difficult it was during the trial to learn about the details of what had happened to his brother. There was a sexual encounter in which Anna had pulled out a yoga mat in her office and slept with Derrick. 

Back at home, John remembers changing Derrick’s diaper, only to find a series of abrasions on his back, almost as if someone had “dragged him across the floor.” He and his mom were concerned, calling the school to find out what had happened, but no one could provide clarity. It wasn’t until the trial that they found out they were due to Anna.

Where are they now?

Derrick is now safe at home with his mom and brother. After her husband divorced her and she served her time in prison, Anna is now living alone out of the public eye. 

At the end of Tell Them You Love Me, Daisy discusses the psychiatrists who told her Derrick was deemed incapable of taking care of himself. “Well, I knew,” she says. “Knowing and accepting it and just embrace him, just love him for who he is, no matter what or how strong he gets, he’s still my child… that’s where we are.”

Tell Them You Love Me is streaming on Netflix now. For more true crime, read about what happened to the Carter family, how to watch the Herb Baumeister documentary, and whether Ashley Madison’s Sam and Nia Rader are still together.