In Netflix’s “Nyad,” one of the more emotional scenes comes when, after a number of failed attempts from Diana Nyad at the Florida-Cuba swim, Bonnie Stoll decides to give up as her coach. It’s a weighty moment that showcases the performances of Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, but the real-life Stoll has suggested that this moment of the biopic is inaccurate. In an interview with USA Today, Stoll said that the conflict between her and Nyad was played up to keep the film’s narrative engaging.
Stoll went on to explain that she never actually quit as Nyad’s coach, and the pair didn’t have a massive falling out, but she did stop assisting her friend with her perilous long-distance swim attempts for a time. “That split in our relationship never happened,” she said. “For about five months, I wasn’t working with Diana, that’s true. But we’d see each other every day. She wasn’t allowed to say, ‘Bonnie, please come help me again,’ and I wasn’t allowed to say, ‘Diana, don’t do this.'”
Stoll even clarified that the two are still close friends to this very day, an entire decade after Nyad’s controversial swim. “Nyad” co-director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi told NBC News, “They’re family through thick and thin.”
