Fresh from Oscar win Jordan Peele plans Lorena Bobbitt docuseries

Get Out writer-director to produce four-parter on woman who 'dis-membered' husband John Wayne Bobbitt

Jordan Peele with his Oscar for writing "Get Out." March 4, 2018. Photo by Getty

Jordan Peele is going from fictional horror to the real-life kind.

The writer-director who won an Oscar last month for writing Get Out has announced his follow up to that worldwide hit -- a docuseries on Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who gained notoriety in the early 1990s after she cut off her husband's penis.

Peele is set to produce the four-part series for Amazon Prime that will reexamine the case through a more contemporary lens of sexual politics and "gender dynamics." 
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With this project, Lorena has a platform to tell her truth.

--Producer Jordan Peele on his docuseries about Lorena Bobbitt

The incident caused a media sensation in 1993 when Lorena was arrested for taking a kitchen knife to her husband John Wayne Bobbitt's private parts -- dismembering him, as it were -- following what she said was years of domestic abuse and spousal rape. 

She tossed the severed penis from a car window into a field. Paramedics later retrieved the organ and surgeons reattached it. John Bobbitt capitalized on his fame by starring in porno films; he also appeared regularly on Howard Stern's radio show.

Lorena, who was found not guilty at trial by reason of temporary insanity, will participate in the docuseries, to be directed by Joshua Rofe (at a separate trial John was found not guilty of raping his wife; the couple divorced in 1995).

"With this project, Lorena has a platform to tell her truth," Peele said in a statement, "as well as engage in a critical conversation about gender dynamics, abuse, and her demand for justice. This is Lorena’s story and we’re honored to help her tell it."

Heather Schuster, head of unscripted series for Amazon, emphasized how the program will reinterpret the Bobbitt case in line with current sensibilities of the #MeToo moment.

"Lorena reframes Lorena Bobbitt’s story around issues of sexism and domestic abuse," Schuster noted. "[It] offers Prime members an exclusive new view into how America got her story wrong and maybe continues to get it wrong."

No release date has been announced for the docuseries but June seems likely. June 22 will mark the 25th anniversary of the day Bobbitt received his severance.