- Netflix's "Painkiller" follows the controversial Sackler family as they develop the drug OxyContin.
- On the six-episode drama, none of the Sackler family members face legal repercussions directly.
Netflix's fictionalized drama "Painkiller" focuses on the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma as it develops and aggressively markets the drug OxyContin.
But the show, which is based on Patrick Radden Keefe's New Yorker article and former New York Times reporter Barry Meier's book on the Sacklers and the opioid crisis, also explores the wide-ranging effects of OxyContin's ubiquity, including how numerous users later became addicted to the drug. And although Purdue Pharma has been the focus of numerous lawsuits since OxyContin was first released in the mid-90's, the series ends without any of the family members portrayed on the show facing legal consequences.
Here's what really happened to the ultrawealthy Sackler family — and the consequences they faced in real life.
Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler started the family empire
The Sackler brothers were born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents, and all three later became physicians. Arthur, the oldest, eventually pursued a lucrative career in pharmaceutical marketing.
Arthur had four children: Elizabeth, Carol, Arthur Felix, and Denise. Mortimer had eight children throughout his three marriages: daughters Samantha Sophia, Kathe, Ilene, Marissa, and Sophie, and sons Michael, Mortimer D.A., and Robert Mortimer, who died at age 24 in 1975. Raymond, the youngest Sackler brother, had only two children: Jonathan and Richard.
Prominent members of the third generation of Sacklers include Richard's son David, and Jonathan's daughter Madeleine. Richard (played by Matthew Broderick on the Netflix series) was the president of Purdue Pharma from 1999 to 2003. Before that, Richard was directly involved in the marketing of OxyContin, which Purdue started selling in 1996.
Arthur, Mortimer, Raymond, and Richard are the only Sackler family members featured extensively as main characters on "Painkiller." (The sprawling family unit as a whole is portrayed in a few scenes.)
Arthur died before OxyContin was invented, while Mortimer and Raymond died in 2010 and 2017, respectively
Arthur Sackler (played by Clark Gregg) died in 1987 of a heart attack, but appears on "Painkiller" as a figment of his nephew Richard's imagination, offering him advice and admonishments in equal measure. Arthur's children have not benefited from the sale of OxyContin, according to The Guardian.
Mortimer (played by John Rothman) died in Switzerland at age 93, having renounced his US citizenship in 1974 and thereafter living almost exclusively in Europe. Raymond (played by Sam Anderson) was described as "a billionaire and a noted philanthropist, funding biomedical research, including work on the human genome and the biological roots of psychiatric illness" in an obituary written by Politico after he died in 2017 at age 97.
Former Purdue Pharma executive Richard Sackler eventually distanced himself from the company
In 2003, Richard stepped down as president of the notorious pharmaceutical company. However, he remained on the board, and even taught as an adjunct professor of genetics at Rockefeller University up until 2013. Around that time, Keefe reported, Richard moved to Austin, Texas, where he continued the family's tradition of philanthropy.
Per Keefe, Richard continued donating to Yale, as well as the neoconservative think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. At the time of the 2017 article, Keefe said Richard lived in a "modern hilltop mansion" in the suburbs of Austin, though Richard has reportedly been looking to downsize, and currently has his $18.5 million Beverly Hills property on the market.
According to The Guardian, Richard — along with his son, David, and Theresa, the third wife of his late uncle Mortimer — attended a virtual hearing at US bankruptcy court in March 2022 as part of Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy proceedings. At the hearing, the three Sacklers were made to listen to emotional statements given by about two dozen people personally affected by the opioid crisis.
Second and third-generation Sacklers have faced some fallout
In addition to Richard, who's a central character on the show, other members of the second generation of Sacklers who previously served on the board of Purdue Pharma included Richard's brother Jonathan (who died of cancer in 2020) and their cousin, Mortimer D.A.
Mortimer Jr. and his wife Jacqueline moved to Europe in 2020, according to the New York Post, amid the backlash against the family following a staggering number of lawsuits filed against Purdue Pharma which named several family members as defendants.
The third generation of Sacklers, even those who aren't related to the family by blood, have also been hyper-scrutinized for the family's role in the opioid epidemic.
David's wife Joss founded a now-defunct clothing brand called LBV, which courted controversy shortly after its launch for seemingly trying to minimize Joss' ties to the Sacklers, and for reportedly offering Courtney Love (who, along with her late husband Kurt Cobain, publicly battled an opioid addiction) $100,000 to appear at one of its fashion shows.
Madeleine Sackler, daughter of Jonathan (and granddaughter of Raymond), recently came under fire for her latest film, entitled "O Horizon." According to ArtNet's Sarah Cascone, several crew members were uncomfortable with the subject matter (about a grieving daughter using new AI technology to eradicate her pain) because of Jonathan's death in 2020 and the Sackler family's involvement with OxyContin.
According to Madeleine's website, she's an "Emmy award-winning director and producer based in New York City and Los Angeles." Her site makes no mention of her controversial family connections. As Insider's Katie Warren and Taylor Nicole Rogers previously reported, Madeleine said she had "never worked at the company or had any influence in it," in response to criticism about her ties to Purdue Pharma.
And in 2019, three museums — the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate art galleries, and the Guggenheim — began to reject donations from the Sackler family amid growing outrage over the opioid crisis. According to The Washington Post, the family as a whole has had a long history of throwing monetary support behind cultural organizations and universities, and Arthur Sackler donated art valuing millions of dollars and $4 million to the Smithsonian for its Sackler Gallery before his death.
Various museums — including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — have scrubbed the Sackler name from their buildings. Most recently, Oxford University announced in May 2023 that its "university buildings, spaces, and staff positions" funded by Sackler family donations would no longer bear the family's name. The university said it had the "full support" of the Sackler family in the renaming.
Members of the Sackler family may be shielded from future lawsuits, in exchange for a payout that would go towards alleviating the opioid crisis
Court filings show that the Sacklers made at least $10 billion from the sale of Oxycontin, NPR reported.
At the time of writing, none of the Sackler family members are facing criminal charges for their involvement with Purdue Pharma and OxyContin, though eight of them were also named defendants in a 2019 suit filed by the state of New York against Purdue Pharma. The complaint alleged that the "statewide catastrophe" of the opioid epidemic happened because Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers, and other drug manufacturers and distributors acted fraudulently and illegally "in order to profiteer from the plague they knew would be unleashed."
The proposed settlement would allow Purdue Pharma to restructure as a different company, with the Sackler family relinquishing control and contributing up to $6 billion in profits towards opioid crisis relief. The agreement would also prevent the Sacklers from being held personally liable as individuals from lawsuits and possibly allow the family to keep billions in Purdue Pharma revenue distributed from 2008 to 2017.
But in August 2023 at the Biden administration's request, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the agreement, arguing that the Sacklers should not be entitled to protection from opioid-related civil lawsuits.
In a filing to the Supreme Court, solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar argued that this release from liability would be "of exceptional and unprecedented breadth" and would constitute "an abuse of the bankruptcy system."
Purdue Pharma said in a statement in August that it was "disappointed" over the delay in finalizing the settlement.
"We are confident in the legality of our nearly universally supported Plan of Reorganization, and optimistic that the Supreme Court will agree," the company said, according to the Associated Press. "Even so, we are disappointed that the US Trustee, despite having no concrete interest in the outcome of this process, has been able to single-handedly delay billions of dollars in value that should be put to use for victim compensation, opioid crisis abatement for communities across the country, and overdose rescue medicines."
The bankruptcy plan was initially approved in 2021 by a federal judge, who called it a "bitter result" and said he "would have expected a higher settlement" given his belief "that at least some of the Sackler parties have liability" in the opioid-crisis claims.
When reached for comment by Business Insider at the time of the settlement delay in August, a representative for Purdue Pharma shared the following statement:
"We have the greatest sympathy and respect for those who have suffered as a result of the opioid crisis, and we are currently focused on concluding our bankruptcy so that urgently needed funds can flow to address the crisis. Under our settlement, Purdue Pharma would cease to exist and Knoa Pharma, a newly formed company with a public-minded mission, would emerge. The settlement would deliver over $10 billion of value for opioid crisis abatement, overdose rescue medicines, and victim compensation."
The Supreme Court began hearing arguments related to the proposed bankruptcy plan in early December 2023. As Robert Barnes and David Ovalle reported for the Washington Post, justices seemed divided at first, with some seeming open to arguments that the deal has merit, while others appeared to disagree.