What is the controversy surrounding Netflix's Adolescence? Explained

Netflix's hit psychological crime drama series Adolescence is in the news once again, and this time, it is for something unprecedented. Some people are accusing the Netflix show of race-swapping Jamie Miller's character, alleging that the specific incident that inspired the series involved a black person and not a white one, as depicted in the show.

One of the first people to put forth this claim was an X (formerly Twitter) user @stillgray on March 20, 2025.

"Netflix has a show called Adolescence that’s about a British knife killer who stabbed a girl to death on a bus and it’s based on real life cases such as the Southport murderer. So guess what. They race swapped the actual killer from a black man/migrant to a white boy and the story has it so he was radicalized online by the red pill movement. Just the absolute state of anti-white propaganda," Cheong claimed .

His thoughts were corroborated and challenged by many, including X CEO, Elon Musk who simply said "Wow."

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Why are people challenging the content of Netflix's Adolescence on X?

As previously mentioned, recently, several people have been voicing their opinions about Netflix's Adolescence. These opinions differ starkly from the view held by many immediately after the show's release. While previous notions focussed more on the structural changes the show could bring to society, the current ones are more focused on how the show misrepresents its characters.

As previously mentioned, viewers are now questioning the race of the show's perpetrator, Jamie Miller suggesting that the show swapped it. While Ian Miles Cheong was one of the first people to talk about how the show was based on the Southport murderer on X he was not the only one. Another user by the name of Lucky Teter on X had a similar thing to say in his post about the show on March 19, 2025.

"Jack Thorne created and wrote Adolescence on Netflix, where the murderer was race swapped from a black migrant teen to a young conservative English boy..," he said.

Yet another user on the platform echoed a similar sentiment while highlighting a different incident that she believed inspired the series.

"The new Netflix series ”Adolescence”, inspired by the murder of Elianne Andam, depicts a white teenager as the killer. However, the real murderer was Hassan Sentamu. This is how they brainwash us into believing white men are the problem, when in fact, it’s immigrants," she said while noting how the perpetrator in that situation was also a black person.

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Is Netflix's Adolescence based on the aforementioned incidents?

Since the beginning, the show's creators including Stephen Graham who plays one of the leads in the show have maintained that Adolescence is not based on a specific incident.

In an article published on Tudum by Netflix, Graham revealed that the plot of the show came to him when he noticed the trend of a high incidence of knife crimes in the UK committed by boys against girls.

He also admitted to having had a lot of questions related to the incidents including "Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?". This eventually led Graham, Jack Thorne (co-creator), and Philip Barantini (director) to think about their social standing as men.

In addition to this, Jack Thorne, as per a Variety article published on March 31, 2025, while being questioned about the claims of race-swapping Jamie's character during a weekend episode of The News Agents podcast said:

"There is no part of this that’s based on a true story, not one single part.”

He also said that the idea that knife crimes were only committed by Black boys was "absurd." He clarified that with Adolescence they were not trying to make a point about race but of masculinity.

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All episodes of the show are currently streaming on Netflix.