Is Netflix’s Adolescence Based On True Stories? Here’s What We Know

The four-episode British mini-series, Adolescence, follows the story of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old school-going boy who is arrested for the murder of his female classmate named Katie Leonard. The series is also being lauded for the one-take filming of each episode. The drama spans over 13 months as the detectives, a child psychologist, and Jamie’s parents try to find out the main cause. At the time of this writing, the show had garnered over 24.3 million views.

What is the inspiration behind Netflix’s Adolescence?

Netflix’s crime thriller is not based on one singular story, but it borrows from similar stories that have happened in real life. Stephen Graham, the writer and creator of the show, who also plays Jamie’s father Eddie Miller on the show spoke to Virgin Radio U.K. and recounted an incident where he found a murder story while reading a newspaper.

He said, “I was reading the paper, and there was an article about a young boy who’d stabbed a young girl to death.” He then added, “And then a couple of months later, I was watching the news and there was a piece on there about a young boy who’d stabbed a young girl to death—and these were at opposite ends of the country.”