Aretha Franklin’s family have called on fans to ‘boycott’ NatGeo’s limited series Genius: Aretha, which is a movie about the life of the late singing legend, who passed away aged 76 in 2018.
Aretha Franklin’s family are calling for the boycott of the series which will be depicted in the NatGeo limited series, with British actress Cynthia Erivo in the lead role, after accusing the producers of ‘disrespecting’ them and snubbing their attempts to work with them on the series.
According to reports, in a TikTok video, Aretha’s granddaughter, Grace Franklin, said: ‘As the immediate family, we feel that it’s important to be involved with any biopic of my grandma’s life, as it’s hard to get any accurate depiction of anyone’s life without speaking to the ones closest to them.
“During the process of writing, directing, and filming this movie, we’ve reached out to Genius as a family on multiple occasions where we have been disrespected and told we will not be worked with.’
Grace added: ‘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 there will be many inaccuracies about my grandmother’s life.’
Grace’s father, Kecalf Franklin, who is Aretha’s son, made similar claims in a recent interview with Rolling Stones, stating: ‘We had our lawyers reach out to them and see if we could have some type of input and see the film and say what we like and what we didn’t like about it. ‘And the report that we got back was saying that it was too late, production had alrebehaviourped up and that they didn’t want to work with us. It was basically too late.’ He told the publication:
‘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.’
However, NatGeo has insisted that they have told the Respect hitmaker’s story in an ‘honest and authentic way’.
Known as the Queen of Soul, the singer/songwriter had a spectacular career with 112 singles charting on the Billboard charts and winning 18 Grammy Awards. She is one of the best selling artists in history with more than 75 million records sold worldwide.
She was also the first female performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Aretha was posthumously given a special citation by the Pulitzer Prize jury in 2019.
The hit-maker died in 2018 at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer. She has been married twice, though was not married at the time of her death, and is survived by her four sons.