Aaliyah, Britney & The Apathy of Lifetime "Biopics"

a quick note the um footage from the princess of rnb looks like i bought it from a guy selling it out of the trunk of his car just ignore that in his lifetime oscar wilde made a lot of statements many of them thought provoking and profound and so insightful that if i were to pick any old writer to be on twitter today i'd pick him but it's this quote from picture dorian gray that i always think of when confronted with hollywood's favorite oscar bait genre the biopic biopics have been around for about as long as cinema many film scholars cite the first of its kind being the silent film joan of arc directed by george melisse this of course followed the joan of arc i don't know if that was obvious since then biopics have become so widespread with at least three being released every year that the words based on a true story don't have the same effect that they once had well the hollywood industry still eats that [ __ ] up like it's wheaties bohemian rhapsody famously won an oscar actually won a couple despite not being a very critically acclaimed movie it also won best editing which is still so funny including an oscar for romy malek's turn as freddie mercury which is not surprising starring roles and biopics about famous musicians famous writers famous political leaders have given actors like jamie foxx philip seymour hoffman and olivia cole their very first academy awards and cate blanchett whose turn as bob dylan and my personal favorite biopic ever was nominated for an oscar she was beat out by marion cottiard who was also in the running for portraying a real person edith piaf in la vienros it's gotten to the point that now if an announcement is made that an actor has gotten the role of a certain real-life figure the first response is oh boy they're coming for that oscar aren't they and these biopics keep coming there's something interesting about seeing a story we know told on screen whether that is an adaptation of a beloved book or the story of the best boy band that ever was the temptations bite me on that i dare you it's always interesting to see how the story will be told in movie form what will they do to elevate this moment in history how will they use music and editing and cinematography to evoke the same feeling of excitement and adrenaline that people had when this thing actually happened and even though this is the thing that brings people to the movies to see how it's going to go down it's also a thing most of us already know because unfortunately a lot of biopics have the exact same formula so much so that you can pretty much predict how most of them will go down even if you don't see them for yourself this formula has proven to be successful time and time again not always critically but oh well sometimes the biopic is beloved by awards season and by critics but loathed by audiences sometimes critics and audiences love it but award season just pretend it didn't exist but something really special happens when a biopic is so egregious and lazy that no one likes it the lifetime movie network is nothing short of iconic television it's been home to some of the most redundant paint by numbers zero effort tv movies ever and i love it for that every now and then you get a lifetime original that's actually pretty well made in heartfelt one that comes to mind immediately is a girl like me while there are problems with this movie most notably the use of a cisgendered actor to play a trans woman as a narrative structure is not bad especially for a lifetime original but considering it was directed by agnieszka holland one of the best filmmakers to come out of poland i don't think it's that surprising i also don't think lifetime has seen that much positive attention for a movie since then and it's fine it's lifetime when i visit my grandma we sit down to watch one of these movies her with her cigarettes and me with my other cigarettes we know what we're getting into most people don't go into any lifetime movie let alone a lifetime biopic expecting amadeus so it might seem like low-hanging fruit to talk about these biopics in particular but the awfulness of these movies are intriguing for a couple of reasons in 2014 and 2017 respectively lifetime released two biopics of two very notable musicians the princess of r b was about singer aliyah whose career started when she was only 14 and was cut short after her tragic death at the age of 22. brittany ever after chronicled the rise fall and rise of pop princess britney spears both these biopics are completely unauthorized which has sort of become a theme of all lifetime movie biopics to date and you could say the princess of rmb was a pioneer of lifetime's fixation on the genre when the princess of r b was announced there was widespread backlash i mean this is alia she's a legend she's an icon she gave us back-to-back hits when she was still in high school she gave us xxl looks and the tommy hilfiger looks and looks that are so memorable that people to this day are recreating it aliyah was a child when she took the music world by storm and it was obvious that she was going to have a big career she didn't limit herself to one thing and everyone could see how far a distance she was going to travel she was only getting started when she died her death was sudden tragic and affected the music industry and her cohorts for years that made people love aaliyah and people were protective of her memory aliyah gave more to us in her 22 years than most will ever contribute in a lifetime it's one thing to recognize your gift but it's an extraordinary blessing to share your talent with the world aliyah gave so much to so many and for one i will not be sad or mourn her death but celebrate her life and be thankful for the gifts that's touched so many we haven't lost anyone we've only gained an angel this movie wasn't the first biopic lifetime ever made but it really marks the first time that one was put under the scrutiny of social media and was met with massive disdain and this was before anyone knew about the music initially when the project was still in very very early talks like before anyone knew it was a lifetime movie talks zendaya was up for the role but people convinced that she couldn't pull it off were upset then people found out the biopic was unauthorized which meant of course there'd be no music zendaya soon dropped out of the project but she made it very clear that her decision had nothing to do with the naysayers i decided not to do it basically because i feel like i feel like it was being rushed and i feel like production just wasn't there and i feel like i have too much respect and love for alia as a person to do anything less than for her and i feel like if i'm going to do something it has to be done 120 right you know and i love her and i i can't wait to portray her another time words of absolute wisdom and foresight plus she wanted to get the blessing from alias family to go forth with the project and when she couldn't get in touch with them she was out and i just felt like it wasn't being handled delicately considering the situation and i tried my best to reach out to the family on my own and i wrote a letter but i was unable to do so therefore i felt not really morally okay with moving forward with the project her response to not getting the family's blessing was specifically mature when you consider that a she was 17 years old and b the movie's producer wendy williams literally said the family doesn't want the story to be told but we're going to do it anyway zendaya was replaced by alexander ship we all know and love i tried to get in contact with the family before i even accepted the role i asked for an address sadly they couldn't find the mother and they couldn't get in contact with the brother um i wish that i could have gotten their blessing i wish that i could have gotten an address i was like i'll be there and i was like i can book a flight now you know i want to be able to to be able to tell these people how amazing i think their daughter is and what a huge honor it would be for me to portray her in a movie and i really hope that they do see that in the work that we've done but we're gonna do it anyway as the production continued more and more people were upset they were upset that first of all no one had the permission of alia's family they were upset that alexandra's ship was playing aaliyah for a multitude of reasons but mainly because she couldn't act but none of this backlash was a detriment to the production in fact the more posts went viral the more think pieces written the more headlines the more attention the movie got and by the time it premiered it drew in 3.2 million viewers making it the second highest rated tv movie of 2014 this wasn't exactly new to lifetime they were making many of these unauthorized biopics long before aliyah who can forget liz and dick i'm bored i'm so bored what i'm bored i can or the britney murphy biopic released the same year which i'm not even gonna get into because if i do i'll get so angry i might just cry see lifetime has its very own biopic formula that works well for them choose iconic and influential celebrity preferably by dartboard cast someone who doesn't look that much like the real person and more importantly act nothing like the real person garner attention and feed off the hate it works sometimes always not always no sometimes that means some times in 2017 lifetime decided to set its sights on britney spears because ruining one princess's story wasn't enough britney ever after is quite similar to the princess of r b not just in the fairy tale naming of it but in its overall messiness i know i could say the same about every lifetime biopic most of them are messy and rushed and poorly acted but these two movies in particular i find so fascinating both of them take a great deal of pleasure in turning their leads into caricatures both movies are really obsessed with the idea of losing a guy making for eternal heartbreak and emotional breakdowns both movies take the incredible stories of two really iconic women who pioneered the landscape of music and just [ __ ] all over it it's kind of sad but there's a lot of people now who don't know much about aaliyah or don't realize just how big her career was and i get it i mean i have no point of reference pertaining to the popularity of [ __ ] i don't know missed and get it was before my time it doesn't help that alia's music all that iconic music isn't available on streaming platforms so for those who didn't live through it it's relatively easy to forget just how much she dominated the music scene this is someone whose debut album was released a lot earlier than planned based on how successful her first single was back and forth was praised for how it blended dancepaw and rmb a sound that many people and alia's cohort would be influenced by the song peaked at number one on the r b billboard chart number five on the hot 100 number 10 of japan's oricon and number 16 in the uk she was everywhere and for good reason aaliyah's career started in 1989 when she went on star search she didn't end up winning but by the time she turned 12 she was signed to jive records and her first album debuted when she was just 14. she would go on to make such iconic songs as are you that somebody more than a woman we need a resolution and as i said earlier she definitely would have gone on to do a lot more not just in the music scene either she had her sights set on the acting world and napped roles and romeo must die queen of the damned and even the matrix she was nearly cast in the charlie's angels reboot and was set to start and the whitney houston produced remake of sparkle much like the buddy holly biopic aliyah's biopic had the potential to give a close look to a star whose reach was cut short an in-depth and emotional observation of the impact of early fame and a heartfelt tribute to a beloved musician all right then the princess of rmb isn't just a bad biopic it's a bad movie the structure of it just doesn't work mainly because it makes the mistake of assuming people watching the movie already know everything there is to know about aliyah when bohemian rhapsody came out there is an entire generation of people introduced to queen and as a result their album started to chart again and the music videos were racking up new views the movie is awful i'm sorry but it doesn't assume that anyone watching it is already familiar with freddie mercury princess starts with alia's star search performance they don't even show her losing or her disappointment her parents talk about how she's determined but we don't actually see her being determined look at this like you don't know alia well she cried for two days but by day three sometimes i wonder where she gets the focus he wants acting lessons acting she doesn't want to be put in a box she wants to do music and act like streisand and cher she wants to do it all i don't mind this information about the main character it's good to know i just would have preferred to hear it from her alia gets invited by her aunt gladys knight to perform five nights in las vegas and while this seems like an interesting place to continue the story they cut to one year later when her uncle barry tells her about the record deal by the eight minute mark she's performing at a school talent show dana hotten or elia hutton well that's a good question what do you think mom um the simpler the better so just aaliyah yeah just a lia no one in this movie says her name correctly and that would be okay i guess coming from the producers and the makeup artist and all the other people that came into her life later but it's bothersome considering that people loved her so much i loved her so much that it's like whoever got cast in it it's it's it's the the all you better do it right i was watching videos i was listening to songs i was you know digging and delving in as much as i possibly could because i wanted this movie to be perfect i wanted people to see it and be like you know what she did her job i don't want to downplay alex's hard work or make it seem like i believe she's lying about all the research she did for the role because i couldn't ever know that and i don't want to be harsh that being said i do feel like if one was researching so heavily for the part and did spend time watching performances and interviews and spoke to friends and family it may not have been easy to portray everything about alia's personality but it should have been incredibly easy to simply know how to pronounce her name and she said it all the time i wanted the first character i did to be somewhat like the alley of people now is alia your real name ali is my real name your name aaliyah alia oh jesus muhammad ali so i've been saying it wrong for a week because they told me i'm here to tell you thank you thank you ali alia yes it may seem like a little thing but that's exactly why there's no excuse for it it doesn't take a lot of work or research or training to say it the way it was meant to be said and this mispronunciation is a symbol of everything else the movie and his creators represent laziness and i know that's pretty rich coming from someone who mispronounced louis sacher's name in that holes video but come on i wasn't given like a million dollar budget to make a biopic about him all right like could you imagine a biopic about tchaikovsky or everyone including the main character called him yo to take cold sky play is the beat by the 12 minute mark she's met r kelly and then she starts recording her first album this segues into the grossest part of the movie in real life aliyah did meet r kelly when she was about 13 years old her uncle barry convinced him to produce her debut album they spent a lot of time together during this process and by the time alia was 15 the two of them got married kelly forged the marriage license and claimed that aliyah was 18. the marriage was annulled by ali's parents when this happened there was a lot of speculation of course and when people found out it became a scandal not for r kelly in fact the person who faced the brunt of the backlash was alia this part of aliyah's life is very very delicate and it's not something that anyone should be so willing to depict with such ease and especially not without having all of the information which is impossible to have after the marriage was annulled aliyah cut off contact with r kelly and stopped talking about him and why would she have wanted to talk about it it was an awful period in her life it was a rough time for me to be honest and be real for me to get through a very tumultuous period but you know i got through it most people can agree now that r kelly is an actual [ __ ] human and they mourn the ways that the world reacted to him in earlier days and despite writing a song for a year old girl called h ain't nothing but a number and then marrying said 14 year old all of this was ignored and made light of you would think since the movie was made in 2014 there would be a bit more cognizance of this but there is none the reason this part of the movie is so gross isn't because of the grooming and pedophilia it's because the movie chooses not to frame it that way it's framed as consensual and even as desirable they depict alia and r kelly as soul mates being each other's one and only true love the moments between them are shown as being sweet with romantic instrumentals playing in the background and this is a very calculated very dangerous decision but it's not too surprising it was produced by wendy williams it's very unsettling to watch and if my reaction to this portion of the movie was supposed to be feeling sick to my stomach i'd be impressed but it feels like the film wants you to root for them you're supposed to look at their relationship as if it was consensual and idyllic not predatory of all the egregious things in this movie this is easily the worst thing about it after this whole situation plays out they proceed to briefly acknowledge each stage of alia's career how she started working with missy elliot and timbaland for her second album how she became at the time the youngest person to perform at the oscars how she went on to act and romeo must die all of these events however are contained in scenes that span from one to three minutes it devolves into a montage of alia's life but not really it's like a wikipedia page only when you read a wikipedia entrance you're not forced to also endure melodramatic acting thanks to the wardrobe team and makeup artists they mostly get the look of balia down her xxls bandanas sunglasses smooth down hair all of that looks fine and seeing those outfits and recognizing the real life inspiration behind it was kind of fun but nothing else about alex works this might sound crazy but i don't think it's always necessary to get an actor who looks like the real life person i think it matters more if the actor can capture the essence of that person the cadence in their speech their mannerisms the way they walk uh that does not mean i think it was okay for zoe saldana to plane a simone or other casting decisions similar to that one that was really [ __ ] up i don't think you should be wearing prosthetic noses and darkening your skin tone to place someone that you don't look like but what i meant more of is that if you can't find someone for example with the exact droopiness in bob dylan's eyes don't worry about it when demetrius ship jr was cast as tupac in the now infamous biopic lots of people noted a quote striking resemblance between the two but when i watched all eyes on me something i deeply regret i wasn't thinking oh wow he looks a little like tupac i was thinking oh wow he acts nothing like tupac regardless of how you feel about him there was no denying that tupac shakur was one of the most charismatic people in contrast watching the interview scenes the unnecessary interview scenes and all eyes on me it's obvious that demetrius well-intentioned as he might have been doesn't have that and he can't fake it either it's the same case with alex and with natasha bassett and brittany ever after but we'll get to her later ship said that she watched archive footage of aliyah to prepare for the role but it's hard to tell especially when she speaks alia had a soft naturally melodic voice she came off as the person who didn't speak unless she had something to say she was very calm and took things slowly her words becoming more deliberate and thoughtful trish is independent she's tough she's edgy and i felt that would coincide well with the real value in the end it's all worth it because it really makes me happy and i wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world considering all the footage ship watched you'd think she could capture some of this or at least capture how alia pronounced her [ __ ] name but she just talks like herself there's no deliberate decisions made to sound like her although at some moments alex will slip into something resembling effort yeah and hip hop is all about keeping it real so you know i have the same chores same friends but then she let it go aaliyah dana hotten or elia hutton aaliyah a liar and i love aliyah now let's take a deep breath and try to unwind and relax before we look at the desecration of britney spears take a deep breath in exhale one more time inhale let it go all right let's look at this [ __ ] brittany ever after is an equally disrespectful disgusting and disingenuous wart on the face of the world it shouldn't even be called a movie but imma go with it this movie wastes zero time it doesn't even try to prep you it goes in balls deep starting with britney being followed by paparazzi it's meant to be a montage showing glam and fame and fortune but it looks so [ __ ] cheap and then cuts to a dance studio where a camera crew is setting up britney is being interviewed for documentary and as soon as the lead actress natasha opens her mouth you know you're in for some [ __ ] britney spears is from kentwood louisiana and you can definitely hear that southern accent become like family because you're working with them day and night can i try a pair of these on just for fun i don't understand how you wear like they come all the way up to the ground still it is a whole lot more subtle than this it's not funny i'm being serious y'all for whatever reason natasha chooses to fully commit to a deep exaggerated southern drawl that does little to evoke britney speaking voice as it feels a lot more like an snl sketch throughout the movie natasha plays brittany as if she was a complete airhead i understand for a lot of people this was the perception they had of brittany that she was just some teeny bopper with a manufactured personality and not a single original thought but if you're going to play a real person you should probably think of them like i don't know a [ __ ] person this is an interview scene from the movie where britney is asked about fame and the like now you're single is sprinting up the charts what's that like oh my god i saw the video on tv the other day and i was just like this is so cool i think artists who have levels to them other ones that get a lot farther than the ones who go by a straight line so do you see how much they dumb her down it's obvious that natasha did spend some time watching clips of britney it's easy to tell especially by the facial expressions she chooses to make when she's talking britney is very expressive when she talks about anything and natasha does all of that but just like way too much but anyway the movie when the promo pictures for this movie were released in 2017 people online had a field day making memes out of it mainly because the lead actress according to many looks nothing like britney and while i definitely don't think they look alike i can see that some effort was put into the casting decision one of the most striking things about britney spears are her huge brown eyes and the movie could have thrown full caution to the wind and decided all they needed was someone who was blonde and had sculpted abs but at the very least they got this part right i'm not saying they look identical i'm just saying you can tell they tried when it came to the casting at least the film cuts to 1998 after the release of baby one more time and at the beginning of britney's tour within sync where she was the opening act they feed you a lot of information in a very short amount of time as per usual but the most important is how from the beginning people around brittany are very controlling and say this is done well but it's framed in such a weird way because by the end this control is suggested to be a good thing and that without it britney wouldn't be able to take care of herself this is in spite of numerous scenes leading up to the end where this control is shown as being worrisome and even threatening but all the partying you're doing it's it's not helping okay the label a r we've been working around the clock but we gotta reign it in but you're gonna do some serious damage to your brain my brand i'm sick of my brand larry i was told this was an all-access documentary they'd never let me do that i'm sick of you controlling my sound my look and everything else it's better if reg doesn't go around telling people he's your boyfriend larry and i were talking and and we think it's not good for business i don't want anyone touching me okay okay so tired of everyone touching me for a second i thought maybe this movie had an idea of what it was going for but then we meet justin timberlake and whatever semblance of quality it had left completely falls apart no she's straight bugging he wants to know if you are aware that you are in fact the bomb diggity from here the movie is all about their relationship britney skyrocketing fame her hectic schedules and the breakdown sprinkled in between are references to iconic moments for instance we see her dance instructor introduce her to banana her performance at the 2000 vma is just on a much smaller stage that's weird and a version of those matching denim outfits it's not just the acting or the framing the movie also takes such liberties with brittany's life even including one scene where justin says i think we got robbed they uh i stole the tapes that day even though there's not even a speck of evidence suggesting that this even happened in fact when this aired on lifetime for the first time lots of fans were outraged they weren't expecting an accurate biopic but they weren't expecting such blatant lies either and it doesn't work in the movie because you have no idea about these tapes because they don't mention it before this scene the movie is set up with what are essentially flashbacks guiding us to the end of the story we know about the breakdown and for the rest of the run time the movie leads us up to that moment to figure out what went wrong sounds harmless enough and even a bit more structure than the alia one but what the movie ends up doing is basing everything that britney goes through later on on her breakup with justin as if all that happened in 2007 and the years leading up to it was because she was just so utterly in love with justin timberlake that her life was irrevocably changed there were many decisions that were made for me and that i didn't make myself my life was controlled by too many people and it doesn't really let you be yourself it isn't as if the film is unaware of the things that contributed to her breakdown they acknowledged the paparazzi the constant criticism the hyper sexualization from a very young age the high expectations the lack of control the anxiety all of it is scattered here and there throughout so why commit yourself to this fantasy where everything was because of justin where britney finishes her performance at the vmas in 2008 and says i look horrible he saw me like that and i'm in no way trying to downplay justin's role in brittany's life or anything i mean i wasn't there i don't know what it was like but i do know at one point in time she did say that she thought she was going to be with him forever i mean i really thought that i was gonna be with him for the rest of my life i did and i can imagine breaking up with him your first series relationship in the public eye and him going around telling everyone that you cheated on him and using your double in his music video could not have helped you know but um i just think the movie oversimplified do you realize how many times britney was in the middle of an interview and the interviewer was like hounding her like oh my god britney so why don't you tell us why are you such a [ __ ] or why do you act like such a [ __ ] isn't um there was so much fuzz about these photos in rolling stone in the rolling stone magazine what was your reaction to that and she would go well no i don't i don't think i'm acting like a [ __ ] i just think you know um i'm an entertainer um i'm entertaining people you know because you know that's what i do honest with you i didn't really see like what the big deal was i mean i thought of it i mean that wasn't me i mean that's not me but um i thought of it as a girl playing dress up and me being a girl and me looking at myself in a different way i think artists who have levels to them are the ones that get a lot farther than the ones who go by a straight line and they would be like seems like you're acting like a [ __ ] to me probably the dumbest part of the movie is when britney and justin meet again at a club and have a dance off i'll play you what one game one one-on-one for what your heart we need a resolution for this circus there's lots of biopics that aired on lifetime many of them unauthorized and on good but i wanted to talk about these two not only because both alia and brittany were pretty important people to me in my childhood and even now i guess but because looking at the constraints of the films i truly think there was a way they could have made both without being god awful of course i'm not suggesting all unauthorized biopics should be made but i think if they were going to go ahead and do it anyway they had options to make it not terrible first off both of these movies are really short each spanning just below 90 minutes you can barely fit the entirety of anyone's life or in this case career in this time frame not without condensing things so much that the pacing is thrown off and i'm like why y'all speeding it up like this and then a minute after that she's grown she's a high schooler now i'm sitting here like why y'all speaking it up it just the editing was horrible for the simple fact that it was jumping from scene to scene and it wasn't flooring white it just felt like i was missing like damn did i miss a scene or something i ain't leave this room i was looking at this goddamn tv instead of condensing all of these events pick a couple events or just one event and expand on those the princess of r b could have been something and that something was in the first four minutes we see ten-year-old aliyah singing on star search we cut to her family discussing how even though she lost she was as motivated as ever and then cut to her aunt v gladys knight performing with her on stage these three scenes could have been a fantastic story a young girl who longs to be an entertainer has her confidence blown by a loss on a nationwide talent competition to help her gain confidence and teach her how to perform like a pro her famous aunt takes her under her wing it's small and intimate and offers a lot of opportunity for some good character writing in real life gladys knight was only on her third solo lp by 1991. she wasn't seeing the end of her career but she'd stopped rising only because she cemented herself to the top by this point she'd gained the title of the empress of seoul and was highly respected in the music industry for someone like her who had to fight her way to the top to getting such a title handing down her knowledge to the princess of rmb seemed fitting and i personally think it would have made for an interesting movie i really enjoyed working with her and she was beautiful of course and everybody loved her and we would sit down and talk and and share ideas and and what i thought about the business things that i had learned sort of like passing the torch and i know it wouldn't be much of a biopic in this regard but the intimate story allows for a much smaller budget and it would take care of the issue of not being able to use alia's songs because it would have been long before she had any you could sort of do the same thing with brittany ever after you could focus on that first tour britney was the opening act for some boy band yeah i called in sync some boy band fight me on in 1998 and by the end of 1999 her debut album was number two on the year end charts this was a critical time in her life when her popularity skyrocketed and she was starting to realize what kind of industry this was when people asked her invasive questions when privacy became a thing of the past when she started to become hyper-sexualized by everyone there's a part in that now infamous diane's lawyer interview i remember very well it's really weird like i enjoy my life and i love what i do but at the same time even though we didn't have that much then i was really happy like i'm looking back right now just the simplicity of life it was very nice i think this transition from obscurity to superstardom especially when it's so drastic has a very negative impact especially at a young age and i think a movie on this topic that isn't exploitative could have made for some interesting themes and if you kept it small contained into conversation and considering there on tour you could find relatively cheap locations mimicking stages hotels and restaurants it could have worked but both of these solutions would only work if either of these productions saw alia or brittany as human which we know isn't the case in these movies the most salacious and darkest moments of their lives are the ones the films are eager to depict the reason britney's 2007 breakdown is at the center of brittany ever after isn't because anyone cares about why it happened or showing the ways of the industry it's because that's what people want to see all her life britney was hounded by paparazzi but when she reached this point in her life it was taken to a whole new level people wanted to exploit her talent her kindness and then when she was hurt they wanted to exploit her pain alia had a life and a mind of her own it blows my mind sometimes when i think of how young she was she had three albums influential music and a long career before she died and i know i've said it many times but damn she was just getting started but most of the time when people bring up alia it's to bring up r kelly and how he took advantage of her i'm sorry according to this movie that would be how he was her first true love jesus this is disgusting all of it lacks an understanding of the real people it chooses to center on foregoing their humanity in favor of their iconography turning them into things and events instead of people it's just very apathetic lifetime if you're doing the aaliyah movie right this is what we need to see we need to see how she met r kelly um were they really in love what does your daddy say when you're 15 and bring home a 28 year old man i want to see that and after she um was no longer with um r kelly how'd that thing with dame dash go what we're not showing you is the tastelessness of a plane crash you're right wendy it would be tasteless to show a plane crash but you know what's also tasteless exploiting a part of aliyah's life that even she according to friends family and the last person she was dating before she died wasn't even ready to talk about herself you

Channel: Yhara zayd

Views: 193,967

Rating: 4.9702458 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: MkuGrHPvg6U

Length: 36min 0sec (2160 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020