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“Bad Vegan”: She was the vegan poster girl in New York. Then she met a man for whom she became a criminal
– Sarma Melngailis had a knack for business, but not for men. © Netflix
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03/24/2022, 7:14 p.m
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She was beautiful, smart, successful. High society frequented her restaurant. Until she met a man who promised her a lot and took everything. In the end she was in jail herself. A Netflix documentary about a scandal that rocked New York.
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The headline was good. It has often been copied. “NYC’s ‘Hottest Vegan’ Taken Down By Ordering Pizza”. The line, it was actually too good to be true. But it was true and it wasn’t. It’s complicated. Just like the whole story of Sarma Melngailis. The woman, who made a name for herself with raw food cooking, was the face of the veganism movement in New York City for years. Until a man promised her love, from her the millions – and she herself talked out of her mind until both were behind bars. Netflix has unpacked the story in the four-part mini-series Bad Vegan: Famous and Deceived. It is a documentary to despair.
It started like an American dream. Sarma Melngailis was a woman made for the rise – beautiful, smart, ambitious and with a heart that knew how to dream. At the beginning of the 2000s, she opened the raw food restaurant “Pure Food And Wine”, serving raw food at a fine dining level. The concept was almost avant-garde. Celebrities like Gisele Bundchen and Owen Wilson ran into her and turned the place into a hotspot. Melngailis herself became the poster girl for health-conscious foodies – she was rarely alone and still lonely. At least that’s the story. Then she met a man online. Shane Fox was funny, charming and a con man. She married him, gave him all her money—bit by bit, dollar by dollar. Until the restaurant bled dry and employees could no longer be paid. Shane Fox’s real name was Anthony S.
