Netflix's latest drama, "Maid" (opens in new tab), portrays the resilience of a single mother recovering from domestic abuse. The story follows Alex, a young woman who leaves her abusive boyfriend and takes a job cleaning houses while navigating the American welfare system. This heartbreaking show has captivated fans, who continue to ask if "The Maid" is based on a true story.

The series is based on author Stephanie Rand's memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive.(Opens in new tab) The show is largely fictional, adding new characters, Alex's mother and father While more appearances are made, the larger arc and many of the scenes between Alex and her daughter Maddie come from Rand's real life, where she worked as a maid after leaving an abusive relationship. After the book and the events of the show ended, Rand graduated from college and became a best-selling author with a home in Missoula, Montana.

Here is everything we know about Rand and what happened to Alex in real life.

Rand's memoir follows a similar trajectory to the show, beginning with her leaving an abusive relationship and raising her daughter Mia (who now goes by the name Story and uses their/their pronouns). In an essay on her personal website (opens in new tab), Rand states that she broke off the relationship in January 2008, began cleaning house, and sought government assistance because she was unable to resume working in the restaurant industry while seeking daycare for Story because many establishments were only open during weekdays.

Although the additional characters in the story are mostly fictional and only lightly mention her ex-boyfriend and her parents, and do not mention customers similar to Regina, many of the events, including the story's pony party and car accident, actually happened. Since the series was released, Rand has published several photographs of real-life events written in Made the Book and depicted in Made the Show.

Spoilers for Season 1 of "Made. The ending of "Made" (open in new tab) shows Rand's fictional avatar, Alex, moving to Missoula, Montana to study creative writing in college. The real-life Rand also attended college while continuing to clean house and care for her children; she graduated from the University of Montana in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in English and Creative Writing.

After college, Rand began working as a freelance writer for a parenting magazine. A year later, she published an essay about working as a housekeeper in Vox (open in new tab), which went viral and led to a book agent. A year later, her memoir, "Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive," was published. The book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and President Obama's 2019 summer reading list, and was also selected for a Netflix series.

Before the Netflix series premiered, Rand posted a lengthy message on Instagram describing her feelings about the release and the creative process. She revealed that the show's creator, Molly Smith Metzler, and executive producers John Wells and Erin Jontow spent time with her and her story to learn more about her experience.

"Throughout this whole process of putting my story in the hands of strangers, I had to force myself to believe they would do it justice. They did. By far. And that's because they were truly interested in learning, in using their own experiences to truly understand my feelings of anxiety about food, work, and housing," she writes.

She also thanked the program team for their work." Thank you for your friendship, your patience with my anxious emails, and the many, many hours of hard work to make this happen in the best way possible."

Rand has remarried and lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband Tim Faust and their blended family. In addition to the now 14-year-old Story, known as Mia in the books and Maddie on the show, she has another 7-year-old daughter. She also has her own home and frequently posts snapshots of her life on social media (including one of the family's adorable dog, Keats).

The author is also working on a second book, which, according to the Associated Press (opens in new tab), is about "the harsh truth about college education" and combines her personal experiences with news reports to expose "the outrageous costs, predatory practices, and discriminatory policies that Americans face."

Rand says of the book, "When we think of economic insecurity, we often think of the fallen. The reality is that our nation's educational methods have left millions stretched to the breaking point, with nearly half of our students wondering what to do with their next meal, and even more drowning in debt that they will carry for the rest of their lives.