When two Hollywood heavyweights stepped into the shoes of the same real-life criminal, the internet couldn’t resist turning into a competition.
Sarah Paulson and Charlize Theron have both portrayed Aileen Wuornos, the notorious hitchhiker who violently ended the lives of seven men along Florida highways.
The internet is now debating who to crown for their performance as one of America’s most infamous criminals.
Viewers are now pitting Sarah Paulson against Charlize Theron
Trigger warning: this article contains graphic details that may be distressing to some.
Notorious criminal Aileen Wuornos earned her living as a s** worker.
She confessed to using a firearm and ending the lives of seven men between 1989 and 1990, but she later claimed it was in self-defense because the men had tried to r**e her.
The court gave her six d**th sentences since the body of one of her victims was never found, leading to no m**der charge in that particular case.
Wuornos was executed by the state of Florida by lethal injection in 2002.
Borden, played by Ella Beatty in the show, was another infamous figure in U.S. criminal history
Wuornos’ story was put back in the spotlight after Sarah Paulson played the convicted offender in the new show Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story.
Lizzie Borden and Wuornos were born nearly a century apart, but creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan wanted to include the latter in their fictional retelling to compare and contrast their versions of female violence.
Borden, played by Ella Beatty in the show, was another American woman who became one of the most infamous figures in U.S. criminal history.
She was accused of ending the lives of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.
Aileen Wuornos was accused of violently ending the lives of seven men in Florida
The show’s creators included Wuornos to highlight how society’s perception of female violence has changed between the 19th century and modern times.
Back in 1893, society struggled to accept that Borden would be capable of a crime so gruesome and brutal. A century later, Wuornos came and terrorized the highways of Florida.
“That’s why when Aileen Wuornos comes into the show,” Brennan told People. “That contrast comes in much clearer … What is the Lizzie of our world? How is she treated? And how does she lash out?”
Viewers compared Paulson directly with chilling footage of the real Wuornos
After Paulson was featured in four episodes of the show, fans praised her performance and compared her acting to the real-life Wuornos.
Side-by-side comparisons of Paulson and Wuornos’ courtroom mannerisms have gone viral.
Some fans went a step further and revisited past showcases of Wuornos’ life onscreen, thus digging up Charlize Theron’s portrayal in the 2003 film Monster.
The role ultimately won her the Oscar for “Best Actress.”
since this edit did so well, i had to make another one because the way sarah paulson recreated aileen wuornos’ cross examination down to the smallest details is genuinely insane… https://t.co/h07aMPoOjo pic.twitter.com/MLDU4gBcH1
— ★ (@POPin4k) September 19, 2026
“Sarah Paulson is a great actress and shines in countless other roles but no one beats Charlize Theron’s performance in Monster. It’s Phenomenal,” one wrote on X.
Many agreed with the X user, commenting: “Charlize was Aileen. Unreal performance.”
“Exactly,” said another. “Charlize put her mind, body and soul in that role.”
“Agreed. She really embodied Aileen and bodied that role,” said another.
Charlize Theron’s portrayal of the notorious criminal in Monster won her the Oscar for “Best Actress”
Theron has previously spoken about the life-changing role, saying she didn’t think she could do it at first. But director Patty Jenkins convinced her she could.
Looking back at the experience, the now-51-year-old star said she had never had someone believe in her the way Jenkins did.
“I was always the person who would go into audition after audition after audition and lay myself on broken glass and not get the part. And all of a sudden, this woman is sitting in front of me, and she’s like, ‘You have to. You’re the only person who can,’” she told Marie Claire in 2019.
In preparation for the role, Theron changed her physique by gaining 30-40 pounds and wearing dentures.
She also shared her feelings about the real-life Wuornos and believes she didn’t “start off” as a bad person and seemed to be a “healthy” and “normal” child.
“Patty and I talked a lot about what it takes for somebody just like me and you to cross that line and actually become a bad person…” she told Advocate in 2004. “This was Aileen’s story, but that story in general really fascinates me.”
Following the release of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, the show’s co-creator Brennan said it was an “unexpected breath of fresh air” when Paulson shows up onscreen as Wuornos.
“Sarah Paulson’s good in a production of reading the phone book,” he told Vanity Fair in August. “But she really is something else in this show.”
Paulson “is something else in this show,” said the creator of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
The fictional retelling shows Wuornos being inspired by Borden’s story a century later.
Paulson said the connection between Wuornos and Borden helps the show explore “female rage,” she said in a September appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, noting that there was a “flash-forward, flashback” element in the show.
“We’ve got a modern-day — well, it’s not totally present day — Aileen’s story as she maybe admires Lizzie,” she said.
Brennan believes Wuornos is such a “fascinating character.”
“She could easily be her own season of the show,” he told Tudum.
“Sarah Paulson has to be in the conversation for Top 10 Actors,” one commented online
