It sounds like something you'd see on the Jeremy Kyle Show – a story so odd and unlikely it surely couldn't be true.
But the warped tale of the 12-year-old boy who was raped by his teacher who went on to give birth to two of his children before they eventually got married really did happen.
Vili Fualaau's taboo affair with Mary Kay Letourneau shocked the US and the world when it came to light more than 20 years ago and is just as unbelievable today.
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Despite being jailed twice, the married mum-of-four Letourneau refused to give up on her infatuation with her young pupil and even gave birth to one of their children behind bars.
Their marriage lasted 14 years and even after they split Fualaau remained so devoted to his teacher-turned-wife that he nursed her as she died of cancer aged just 58.
But speaking after her death, he admitted that their relationship, "wasn't healthy" and had probably led to him suffering depression and an addiction to alcohol.
The couple met when they were teacher and pupil at Shorewood Elementary School in Burien, Washington State, US.
In 1997, when Letourneau was 34, she began having sex with Fualaau, who was just 12.
Details of their sordid and criminal affair later emerged and left the local community – and world – sickened.
It transpired they had first become close in 1996 after the school year had ended and they both enrolled in summer classes at the same community college and began spending more time together.
In a 2018 interview, Fualaau told how the boundaries between teacher and pupil were crossed when they went out for dinner and after the meal he asked Letourneau if he could kiss her t in her car.
The young Fualaau may well have been looking for a mother figure.
He was a troubled Samoan boy from a broken home living in a rough part of Seattle. His dad served time in prison for armed robbery and he had a difficult relationship with his mum.
It then emerged that the first time the couple had sex was when Letourneau's then-husband, Steve Letourneau, was out of town.
Their sordid affair was uncovered in 1997 when Mr Letourneau found their love letters and a family member alerted the school authorities who reported the pair to the police.
Because in the US – just like the UK – 12 is under the age of consent, Letourneau was charged with statutory rape.
But in a bombshell development, she was pregnant with her schoolboy lover's child.
Letourneau, who already had four children with her husband, pleaded guilty to rape and gave birth to Fualaau's first daughter while she was awaiting sentencing.
She was jailed for three months, but after leaving prison she started up her illegal relationship with Fualaau again and was sentenced to another term of seven-and-a-half years.
Eight months into this sentence, she gave birth to their second daughter when Fualaau had not even turned 15.
A restraining order had been put in place to stop Letourneau having any contact with her "victim" when she was released from prison.
But, so infatuated was Fualaau with his older lover, he petitioned in court for a judge to remove this restriction.
He succeeded and the order was dropped, but the shamed teacher remained a registered sex offender in Washington state.
By now Mr Letourneau had filed for divorce and received full custody of their four children and moved the family to Alaska.
Fualaau and Letourneau got married in 2005 and stayed together until Fualaau filed for divorce in 2017. They tried to save their marriage and continued living together, but they couldn't reconcile and got divorced in 2019.
Despite this, they stayed on amicable terms and Fualaau was at his ex-wife's deathbed when she died from colorectal cancer in July 2020 aged 58.
In an interview on American TV's The Dr Oz Show in 2020, Fualaau told how he now knew that his relationship with a woman 22 years his senior was wrong.
He also said that if he was ever attracted to children – which he said he was not – he would "get help" rather than act on the urges like his former wife had.
A source close to Fualaau told America's People magazine: "He's starting to get some perspective. He sees things clearly now, and realises that this wasn't a healthy relationship from the start."
Letourneau, however, was unrepentant and insisted she'd done nothing wrong apart from "fall in love".
Speaking in 2018, the mum-of-six said she had no idea it was illegal to enter a sexual relationship with a child at the time.
'If someone had told me, if anyone had told me, there is a specific law that says this is a crime, I did not know and I've said this over and over again," she said.
In the same TV interview, Fualaau also appeared and said he "wasn't thinking" when they started having sex when he was just 12 years old.
"The age difference, all of that stuff wasn't going through my mind," he said. "A lot of things that should have gone through my mind at the time, weren't going through my mind."
But he later admitted that the relationship had taken its toll on him, as he slipped into depression and alcoholism and struggled to bring up two daughters when he was barely an adult himself.
"I don't feel like I had the right support or the right help behind me – from my family, from anyone in general," he said.
"M friends couldn't help me because they had no idea what it was like to be a parent because we were all 14, 15.
'I'm surprised I'm still alive today. I went through a really dark time."
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