Whatever Happened To The Real Erin Brockovich?

In 2000, "Pretty Woman" star Julia Roberts captivated movie buffs with her Oscar-winning portrayal of the title role in "Erin Brockovich." The film, which also featured the late Albert Finney, was inspired by the work of a paralegal who investigated PG&E in a groundwater contamination case. Brockovich, with the help of Tom Girardi and other attorneys, successfully sued the gas and electric company for $333 million on behalf of the residents of Hinkley, California, in 1996, the largest settlement in a direct-action lawsuit at that point.

Before her role in the Hinkley case, Brockovich was an unemployed mother of three with no legal experience. But what she lacked in expertise, she made up for in determination. "Everywhere I was going in this little community, somebody had asthma, a complaint of a chronic cough, recurring bronchitis, recurring rashes, unusual joint aches, nosebleeds," she said on ABC News' "20/20" in 2021. "It didn't make sense, and so the more I ask questions ... the more I started to piece the puzzle together."

Brockovich believes the case was important not only for the people of Hinkley but also for opening our eyes to a bigger issue. "We're still talking about this, and that movie came out 21 years ago. And it was almost before its time because it was about environmental pollution that we are in the throes of today," she said. The case — and later the film — changed Brockovich's life in more ways than one, particularly because it put her on a path she is still on today.

Her work on the PG&E case inspired Erin Brockovich to continue to fight against big-name companies for environmental damage. The self-dubbed environmental activist is particularly concerned with water contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly referred to as PFAS or colloquially as forever chemicals for their inability to break down in the environment. However, she has litigated wide-ranging cases, from mold contamination to a methane leak.

She is also the founder of The Brockovich Report, a website and newsletter through which she discusses environmental issues, what she calls "the national water crisis," toxic chemicals, and their potential links to health problems. Brockovich has taken her social justice activism to different mediums, including a book titled "Superman's Not Coming." Despite being an author and public speaker, Brockovich continues to act on the ground. "Up in Maine this week uncovering vast toxic PFAS contamination spread far and wide polluting water, land, food chain and our health," she captioned a May 2022 Instagram post (seen above).

Even though she became an activist after the PG&E litigation, Brockovich's concerns with water contamination started in her childhood in Kansas. "When I was a little girl, my father would sing songs to me all the time about water. We would be playing down at the creeks and he would make up little tunes singing, 'See that lovely water, trickling down the stream, don't take it for granted, someday it might not be seen,'" she shared on her website.