Bad Vegan Sarma Melngailis Has ‘Cleared Up’ a Few Things About Her Netflix Documentary

While it is rare in the industry to pay a documentary subject for an interview, Netflix notably also compensated socialite scammer Anna Delvey for the use of her story in the fictionalized limited series Inventing Anna. That money was also used to pay back the debt Delvey had incurred.

In a Instagram post from this week, Melngailis, a Wharton Business School graduate, shared that more is to come in regard to her thoughts on the documentary. “Clarified some things. Commented on the disturbingly misleading ending. More to come,” she wrote in her caption, directing followers to read more in her blog post.

There she shared that the payment covered her attorney fees along with employment backpay. “While the funds bypassed me entirely, I did declare them for income tax purposes, just to be clear,” she said. “The point is…beyond getting former employees repaid, I did not otherwise profit from Bad Vegan.” (It’s important to note that the privilege to even be paid in this aspect is a great advantage that not many are afforded. The relief of not being in debt is a luxury for many; even though none of the money went to Melngailis directly, she still was paid and offered some peace of mind.)

Melngailis also addressed one thing she says Netflix got wrong: She is not in contact with her ex-husband, Strangis. “I am not in touch with Anthony Strangis,” she said. “While early tabloids got the first word and a lot of that narrative has stuck, I didn’t ‘flee’ in 2015 as those accounts stated, nor was I ‘on the lam,’ at least not to my knowledge. I didn’t leave voluntarily. I didn’t know what funds Anthony had at the time, and I no longer had access to my electronic devices and email/text accounts.”

But paying off the debt to her employees is her priority, she said: “Of all the harm and the many debts resulting from my downfall, this portion weighed heaviest.”

The chef ended her post by promising another update soon. Fingers crossed it’s about that whole Strangis-and-meat-suit thing.