She wanted to be famous but also remain a mystery.

Angelyne, the pink-Corvette-driving blonde bombshell of L.A. lore, built her fame on her eye-popping billboards that appeared all over Los Angeles in the 1980s. The enigmatic entity—sometimes a singer, sometimes a model, sort of an actor, and twice a gubernatorial candidate—has spent decades being famous for being famous, cruising around L.A., selling merch out of her car, and posing for photos (for $20 a pop). But she has historically avoided answering questions about her mysterious past. Now the TV show Angelyne, debuting on Peacock on May 19, aims to reveal much more about her journey to stardom.

Angelyne stars Emmy Rossum as the titular character and is based on a 2017 Hollywood Reporter article that unearthed information about Angelyne’s past. The series uses a faux-documentary style, with Angelyne and those in her orbit sitting for interviews that then flash back to moments from her life.

The series also plays with the idea of what the truth really is when it comes to Angelyne. Perhaps we know much more than we did before about this L.A. icon, but will we even know the real story? Ahead of the new series’ debut, here’s a breakdown of how Angelyne became the L.A. icon she is—and what the series hopes to reveal.

The woman known as Angelyne first appeared in a band in the late 1970s in Los Angeles. She joined her boyfriend’s band, Baby Blue, as a singer, playing in L.A. clubs. But the TV series plays with what may or may not have happened to break up both the band and Angelyne and her boyfriend, making it clear that Angelyne and others involved with this story may see things differently. It ends with Angelyne undergoing plastic surgery to enhance her breasts and change her face into that of the woman most people are familiar with now.

From there the series looks into how Angelyne was able to get billboards of her image plastered around the city. Many have wondered who bankrolled the billboards, and the series digs into her relationship with Hugo Maisnik, a married older man whom she worked with (and who became her manager) to make the billboards a reality. “Success is a high better than any drug, and to be honest, I got kind of addicted to the attention. I became a billboard junkie,” she said in a 2019 interview. At one point there were more than 200 billboards across the city with her image on them. Along with releasing two albums, Angelyne dabbled in acting and art—but from the moment those billboards hit Los Angeles, her full-time job was being famous.

She also ran for governor—twice. First, in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, in which she earned 2,536 votes to finish 29th. She then put herself on the ballot again in 2021 during the recall election of Gavin Newsom, ranking 18th among possible replacements.

To become Angelyne, Rossum donned three-pound fake breasts, contact lenses, heavy makeup, and a blonde wig, sometimes spending four to five hours in the makeup chair each day. “The physicality of the character was challenging. The body is heavy, yet it has to feel light and effervescent,” said Rossum in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

For a moment it seemed as if Angelyne would be involved in the series, signing on as an executive producer after meeting with Rossum. “So excited to be able to share that the embodiment of LA itself, the original Queen of the Universe, is the executive producer of our show!” Rossum posted on Instagram in February of 2020 alongside a photo of herself with the icon and her pink Corvette.

But it turned out too good to be true. In the end, Angelyne was paid for her life rights but decided to step back from the project. She does not receive an E.P. credit, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In the series, Alex Karpovsky stars as Jeff Glasner, the journalist character based on The Hollywood Reporter’s Gary Baum, who wrote the 2017 article. Hamish Linklater plays Rick Krause, the president of the Angelyne fan club who grows close with her, and Martin Freeman plays Harold Wallach, a character based on Maisnik.

Until The Hollywood Reporter’s article broke open the true story, Angelyne had mostly claimed to be an only child from a Midwestern state—that is, when she was willing to talk about her past at all. But Baum’s story revealed that she was born in Poland with the name Renee Tami Goldberg and was the daughter of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Los Angeles when she was young.

In both real life and the TV series, Angelyne has not confirmed the details of Baum’s story and has mostly evaded questions about it. “When I became famous, a lot of people just wanted to be part of it, so they’ll say anything,” she said in response to the article. She seems determined to remain a mystery, despite what others may hope to learn from both that 2017 article and this new series.

The creators of Angelyne, for their part, embrace the mystique that Angelyne has created as the original influencer. “We don’t really think of it as a biopic. We almost feel like it’s a show about the failure of biopics and how there’s no way we could get it right,” showrunner Allison Miller told Variety. The show plays with this idea of what might be true and how much of Angelyne’s story is crafted by her own doing. In the end, we may never know everything about how Angelyne became the woman she is today, and the show seems happy enough to explore that idea. But it’ll still be a fun ride in one very pink Corvette.