- The real-life family who inspired Netflix's "The Watcher" said they won't be viewing the show.
- In comments to several outlets, the Broaddus family said that even watching the trailer was stressful.
The family that inspired Netflix's chilling new series "The Watcher" revealed in comments to several publications that they won't be bingeing the drama.
The Broadduses declined to comment when reached by ABC News for a segment on a New York affiliate's Tuesday afternoon broadcast, but according to Entertainment Weekly, ABC correspondent Eva Pilgrim noted: "We've been told they have no plans to watch the show; the trailer was traumatizing enough."
And in his recent follow-up to the bombshell 2018 New York Magazine article that inspired the Netflix series, reporter Reeves Wiedeman also spoke to the Broadduses about their thoughts on the new drama. Per Wiedeman, the family doesn't have plans to view "The Watcher," and emphasized that watching the trailer was "stressful enough" for them.
Wiedeman reported that when the Broadduses sold their story rights to Netflix, the only requests they made were that the series not use their real name, and that the actors cast to portray their family onscreen looked as little like the real-life Broadduses as possible.
As reported in the New York Magazine article, Derek and Maria Broaddus bought a home in Westfield, New Jersey in 2014 but soon began receiving threatening letters from an anonymous person — known as "The Watcher" — who mentioned their three kids, spoke about the history of the home, and implied that they were surveilling the house.
The Broadduses eventually went to the police with their findings, but they were never able to identify "The Watcher." The family continued to receive terrifying letters, and eventually abandoned their plans to move into the home altogether, as detailed by Wiedeman's article. They later sold the home at a massive loss, and now live elsewhere in the Westfield area.
All seven episodes of "The Watcher" are currently available to stream on Netflix. The series stars Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale as Nora and Dean Brannock, fictionalized versions of Maria and Derek Broaddus.