Is 'Free Willy' a true story? Find out real life story of Keiko who played Willy

Free Willy is the popular 1993 film where a young boy befriends an Orca whale (also known as killer whales) who has been kept in captivity. Eventually, their friendship grows deeper and the young boy Jake sees the pain of her captivity. He helps the killer whale named Willy escape into the free waters. The film received highly positive reviews and became a big hit. Many people who have seen the film have asked this question: Is Free Willy a true story?

Is 'Free Willy' a true story?

After the release of the film, people wanted to know the Free Willy real story. Yes, Free Willy is a true story based on the life of the incredible Keiko, the killer whale. It's actually Keiko the whale who plays the part of Willy in the Free Willy. So, the story is about a whale kept in captivity. 

The story of Keiko begins when she was just a 3-year-old whale pup who was captured off the coast of Iceland in the 1970s. Keiko was trained to join a group of whales who performed tricks at Marine and was sent to a Marine Park in Mexico. When the film became really popular, the public came to know that Keiko who played Willy in the film was actually kept in captivity in a marine and her living conditions were far from decent. As per an article by the New York times, Keiko was kept in a 12 ft long enclosure, where he was forced to swim in endless circles. As a result, his muscles atrophied and he became seriously underweight. Keiko also developed a skin virus as a result of being kept in contaminated waters. 

A massive campaign was launched by animal rights activists to free Keiko from his enclosure and give him freedom from captivity. After months of campaigning and fundraising, a new rehabilitation pool which was four times larger than his existing pool was made for Keiko where could swim freely and could start learning things to eventually one day go back to the ocean. Keiko had even started to learn to hunt for his own food and was slowly adapting to being sent out into the ocean. In 2002, Keiko was finally set free from his enclosure and swam away to freedom. Sadly, Keiko died in 2003 in Norway due to pneumonia infection.