Aretha Franklin's family are calling for a boycott of the "Genius: Aretha" miniseries, which delves into the dramatic past of the music legend. The biopic forms part of National Geographic's anthology series "Genius," and includes family scandals such as depictions of an alleged sexual relationship between Aretha's father, C.L. Franklin, and a 12-year-old girl.
Now the "Respect" singer's family are up-in-arms because they were not involved in the filmmaking process.
"As the immediate family, we feel that it is important to be involved with any biopic of my grandma's life, as it's hard to get an accurate depiction of anyone's life without speaking to the ones closest to them," said Aretha's granddaughter, Grace, in a video posted on Tik Tok.
"During the process of writing, directing and filming this movie, we've reached out to 'Genius' as a family on multiple occasions where we've been disrespected and told that we will not be worked with," she continued. "As the immediate family — emphasis on immediate — we do not support this film and we ask that you also do not support this film, as we feel extremely disrespected and we feel that there will be many inaccuracies about my grandmother's life. Thank you."
Grace's father, Kecalf, addressed the issue in an interview with Rolling Stone.
"What we’ve found out in the past is that usually when people don’t want to work with you, that is a prelude to some type of unprofessional behavior or a prelude to some type of untruth or slander, so we’re not quite sure where we’re going to see in this series," he said.
"This is about common, decent respect for our family," Kecalf added. "If I was to do a movie on your family, I would try and speak with you, your sons, daughters, grandchildren and people like that. And we just never felt like we got a shot to speak to them freely from my heart about our family member."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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