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Gillian Anderson addresses The Salt Path controversy: "It's very unfortunate"
"It sucked, and continues to suck."
Steve Tanner _ Black Bear
- Molly Moss
Published: Monday, 10 August 2026 at 11:36 am
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The Salt Path star Gillian Anderson has addressed the scandal surrounding the award-winning memoir that inspired the film.
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The bestseller, which purports to tell the true story of author Raynor Winn and her husband Moth’s coastal trek from Somerset to Dorset after being evicted from their farm and Moth receiving a devastating health diagnosis, was shrouded in controversy after a July 2025 report by The Observer disputed key aspects of the book.
Speaking to this week's Radio Times, Anderson – who plays Winn in the film adaptation that was released in May 2025 – said of the controversy surrounding the book: "It's very unfortunate.
"The film was doing really well in the UK – beyond my expectations. I think we were about to sign with Sony Classics for the United States the week when the article came out, so it sucked, and continues to suck."
She continued: "A lot of people were enjoying it, regardless, and it is special in its own right. I hope people are able to experience it as its own entity, separate from what may or may not be true or whatever controversy there is."
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The report in The Observer claimed that the couple did not lose their home in a bad business deal as Winn had written, and that they supposedly lost it because they were unable to repay a loan of £100,000, which they had borrowed to repay £64,000 that Winn had been accused of embezzling from her former employer, Martin Hemmings.
The Observer also claimed that Winn and her husband owned property in the south-west of France, but added that it was not in a habitable state and reported locals saying the couple camped on the land when they stayed.
The report added that multiple medical experts were sceptical about Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD), given his long survival after diagnosis, lack of acute symptoms and apparent ability to reverse symptoms.
In July 2025, Winn posted a statement on her website hitting back at these claims, calling them "grotesquely unfair" and "highly misleading".
Responding to the allegation that she had stolen from her former employer, Winn said that the dispute referred to by The Observer was not the one alluded to at the start of the book and seen at the beginning of the film, with that being a separate matter.
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She claimed that the dispute with Hemmings did not lead to her and her husband losing their home, and while she apologised for "any mistakes I made during the years in that office", she said she was "not charged" and did not face "criminal sanctions" after Hemmings made "an allegation against me".
Winn also reiterated the book's version of events about how she and Moth lost their home.
She added that the property they owned in France is "an uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch, on the boundary of a family member's property".
Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path. Steve Tanner, Black Bear
She said that living there "would be impossible" and the couple did try to sell the land in 2013 but that a local agent said it was "virtually worthless" and "saw no point in marketing it".
Winn also hit back at the report's claims that the couple had no outstanding debts, and denied that they were "hiding behind pseudonyms", adding that Winn is her maiden name and the first names she uses for herself and Moth are nicknames used by themselves and by friends.
Winn also shared photographs of documents appearing to confirm that Moth had previously been diagnosed with CBD, and denied any suggestion that his condition had been "made up" entirely.
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Authors
Molly MossTrends Writer
Molly Moss is a Trends Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest trends across TV, film and more. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism and has previously written for publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Sun Online.
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