American Horror Story’s Real-Life Inspirations, Ranked by Accuracy

Although Briarcliff Manor doesn’t exist, its horrors come straight from the abuse issues of American asylums. Take Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, an institution for people with intellectual disabilities that became a national shame thanks to overcrowding, neglect, and filth. In 1972, young journalist Geraldo Rivera snuck a camera inside and broadcast what he found, shocking the nation into reforms. Asylum invents its setting, but the patient abuse and the reporter who exposes it echo Willowbrook’s grim history almost beat for beat.