Netflix reaches deal with chess champion over The Queen's Gambit lawsuit

Los Gatos, California - After months of mediation, Netflix settled a lawsuit filed by a Georgian chess grandmaster accusing the streaming giant of defamation in the critically acclaimed TV series The Queen's Gambit.

World chess champion Nona Gaprindashvili (l.) had sued Netflix for $5 million, claiming the series defamed her by saying she never competed against male opponents in chess.
World chess champion Nona Gaprindashvili (l.) had sued Netflix for $5 million, claiming the series defamed her by saying she never competed against male opponents in chess.  © Collage: VANO SHLAMOV / AFP & IMAGO / Cinema Publishers Collection

This face off has called checkmate.

Nona Gaprindashvili sued Netflix last year, objecting to a scene in which a commentator refers to Gaprindashvili while narrating a match between protagonist Beth Harmon (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) and fictional Russian grandmaster Viktor Laev at the Moscow Invitational tournament.

Gaprindashvili's $5 million lawsuit challenged the show's characterization of her never competing with men in chess in 1968, when the final episode takes place.

The commentator says, "There's Nona Gaprindashvili, but she's the female world champion and has never faced men." Gaprindashvili's lawsuit said she had played against at least 59 male chess players by 1968.

To say she never faced men is "manifestly false, as well as being grossly sexist and belittling," according to Gaprindashvili's suit, filed last year.

At the time, Netflix said her claim had "no merit."

Nona Gaprindashvili and Netflix have come to an undisclosed settlement over The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit took home the Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series award during the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards last year. (From l to r) Moses Ingram, Marielle Heller, Scott Frank, Anya Taylor-Joy, William Horberg, Mick Aniceto, and Marcus Loges posed with the award on the red carpet.
The Queen's Gambit took home the Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series award during the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards last year. (From l to r) Moses Ingram, Marielle Heller, Scott Frank, Anya Taylor-Joy, William Horberg, Mick Aniceto, and Marcus Loges posed with the award on the red carpet.  © Rich Fury / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP

The settlement comes after a judge in January denied Netflix's motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Netflix had argued that the series is fiction and the line "is not stated by an objective narrator, but rather as dialogue by a fictional character who is, himself, a part of the gender-segregated chess world that the Series depicts."

The Queen's Gambit won multiple Emmys last year, including for limited series. The show tells the coming-of-age story of a female chess prodigy.

Both Netflix and Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, Gaprindashvili's attorney, said in statements that they were pleased that the matter has been resolved. Both parties declined to discuss the terms of the settlement.

Rufus-Isaacs also represents Rachel Williams, a writer and former photo editor at Vanity Fair who is suing Netflix over how she was portrayed in the series Inventing Anna.

Cover photo: Collage: VANO SHLAMOV / AFP & IMAGO / Cinema Publishers Collection

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