Some aspects of George and Tammy have been adjusted to make them more television-worthy, but otherwise, the show is fairly accurate as a whole.
George and Tammy has quickly become one of the most popular musical documentary-style biopics and has attracted millions of viewers.
One of the reasons for this popularity is the contentious relationship between George and Tammy as depicted on the show. However, even though their story may seem dramatic, the show is fairly accurate in its portrayal of events.
How popular is George and Tammy?
George and Tammy is just one of the musical documentaries that has been released this year.
Documentaries in general, but especially music documentaries, have become one of the most popular genres of films and shows in the last few years, with various streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and others all commissioning their own versions.
This style of documentary filmmaking tends to be a popular choice for fans, as it allows normal people to get an inside look into the lives of celebrities that they have known about for years.
George and Tammy has been no different in this sense, with the premiere episode bringing in 3.3 million viewers on its first day.
How accurate is George and Tammy?
This first episode of George and Tammy premiered on Showtime and on Paramount Network simultaneously on 4 December 2022.
Even though just one episode is not a lot to go on, audiences realised pretty soon that this limited series by Abe Sylvia, and directed by John Hillcoat, would be one of the most dramatic musical documentaries released in a long time.
George and Tammy tells the story of famed country music stars, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, as they navigate the complicated worlds of music, fame, and romance
However, the show does not shy away from detailing the tumultuous relationship between the two stars right from the first episode of the series.
As such, many fans want to know whether the show’s portrayal of the events in this episode, titled “The Race Is On” are overly-dramatised to make the show more entertaining to watch, or whether this is an accurate portrayal of the couple’s real lives.
Shockingly, though some of the events in the show were changed slightly, like how the duo met or the exact words that were exchanged on the night that the couple declared their love for one another, most of what is in the show is fairly true to real life.
Where did the creators of the show get their information from?
George and Tammy manages to strike a delicate balance between sensationalism and realism by taking most of its stories directly from the book written by the couple’s only daughter, Georgette Jones, and embellishing them.
Jones released her book, The Three of Us in 2013. In this book she detailed what life was truly like for their family behind the scenes, and it is clear that the show’s creators used this as their reference point for the show.
They also consulted with Tammy’s other children and other starts who knew the couple to fill in the gaps.
What did not happen in real life the way it did in George and Tammy?
Although most of the outrageous scenes in George and Tammy really happened that way in real life, the show does take some liberties throughout. This includes the fact that George and Tammy likely did not meet in the way that the show portrays.
While George and Tammy shows the couple meeting on George’s tour bus for the first time, the more likely story is that they met for the first time in a recording studio.
George also never caused the tour bus to crash the way that it did on the show, and it is unlikely that the famous family dinner conversation happened exactly the way it was depicted.
What was accurate in the first episode of George and Tammy?
While the exact dialogue of the dinner-table conversation where Tammy and George declared their love for each other in front of Tammy’s husband, Don, and their children may vary from real life, the fight really did happen, and it was witnessed by the children.
There have been many descriptions of this dinner-party over the years, which makes it difficult to discern what truly happened, but Tammy’s three children, Gwendolyn, Jackie, and Tina were present at the filming of this episode to ensure that this scene was as accurate as possible.
Other factually correct information on the show includes Don’s song, “When the Grass Grows Over Me” and the fact that George had the strange habit of eating raw potatoes.