By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the upcoming Lifetime biopic of Aaliyah, and the deceased singer’s family is urging fans to protest the movie. Zendaya has defended taking the role on several occasions, but now it’s been confirmed that she has chosen to walk away from the project.
E! News reports:
A rep for the 17-year-old actress told E! News exclusively on Sunday, June 29, that “Zendaya is no longer involved in the project.” Lifetime, which had announced her casting in the biopic on June 16, has not commented.
A source told E! News that there were production issues, including problems obtaining the rights to Aaliyah’s music. The R&B star and Queen of the Damned actress died at age 22 in a plane crash on Aug. 25, 2001.
“Aaliyah has always been an inspiration to Zendaya,” the source said. “She was honored to portray her and pay tribute to her. If she is going to do it, she wants to do it right.”
Good. If the fam didn’t want this movie to happen, it’s for the best.
She lost me when she said she was “black enough.” But whatever.
Yep!
Exactly.
She made the right decision.
So its really about the music and not out of respect.
Exactly! If there had been not issue with getting the rights to Aaliyah’s music then she would’ve never dropped out regardless of how the family felt about the movie
I guess she wanted to pull out because she was salty she couldn’t redo all of Aaliyah’s songs. I bet she wanted the part for that reason alone.
This.
I guess the backlash was too much! Well some people have thick skin for the business and others don’t!
Good. Her acting abilities leave a lot to be desired.
They just need to scrap this movie all together.
This movie is never going to happen.
Not surprised. The way she kept giving interviews and responding to criticism let me know she was feeling some type of way about it.
This is the right decision because Lifetime was setting her up. Next step is for Lifetime to just scrap this movie.
The writings are on the wall. This movie is never going to come out. LOL.
I don’t care bout all that other stuff I’m just thrilled that that some not ALL! women of color was so harsh because she is bi-racial that have to be a big STING! for her to feel black women of all should know how that feels to be called out all the dawn time even if we cough she so young tho welcome to this cruel world honey where if you black or half black there will be hatred it really sucks she had to experience this at such young age in the industry I’m a woman of color and black is black my mom is black and Indian and my dad is jamaican would I have a chance to play her role? Or would I get bashed because I’m half Indian and jamaican? My husband is bi-racial it hurts him when white people mug him because they know he got black in him it just hurts She can’t change that I understand but I wouldn’t take it out on her because of her race that’s so Cray!
I bet her dad is on Twitter having a meltdown.
This is all really messy.