Netflix documentary about Prince may never see the light of day
IN 2019, Ezra Edelman (who won an Academy Award for his 2017 documentary OJ: Made in America) was approached by Netflix VP Lisa Nishimura to make a documentary about Prince. He was reluctant but he was convinced to do it when he learned that Netflix had acquired exclusive access to everything in Prince's vault. In addition, Edelman and Netflix would have control over the final cut. At the time, Prince's estate was being administered by a bank in Minnesota and they agreed to having no editorial influence on the documentary.
He and his team spent a year watching the footage in Prince's vault and then he and producer Tamara Rosenberg spent months trying to convince Prince's former girlfriends, bandmates, assistants, childhood friends, managers, bodyguards, sound engineers, and family members to talk. Eventually he interviewed over 70 people (including his protegees/muses/girlfriends Jill Jones, Carmen Electra, Robin Power, Anna Fantastic, Sheila E, and Mayte Garcia). He combined the interviews with footage from the vault and ended up with a nine hour documentary in 2023.
But by then, the courts had divided Prince's assets between two entities controlled by six of his heirs (his sister Tyka and their five half-siblings) in addition to lawyer L. Londell McMillan (who helped Prince get out of his Warner Brothers contract) and music producer Charles Spicer. Once they regained control of the estate, they moved to shut the documentary team out of the vault. When Edelman showed them the first part about Prince's early life, they were not pleased. A few months later, Netflix VP Lisa Nishimura was laid off.
When the estate was shown the full nine hour version, they sent Edelman 17 pages of notes demanding changes. They claimed that it misrepresented Prince, and they have been doing everything they can to prevent it from being released. McMillan told Edelman that the film would do "generational harm" to Prince. Spicer called it a hit job. The estate is currently holding up the project due to a clause in the original Netflix contract which said the film would not be longer than six hours.
Edelman has screened the full nine hour documentary a handful of times. The author of the article saw it so she was able to share some of the content. Some of the info from the interviews Edelman conducted:
* Prince's father was physically abusive towards both Prince and Prince's mother Mattie.
* After his parents divorced, his stepfather locked him in his room for six weeks. A youth counselor who knew Prince as a child said that after this prolonged punishment, his ebullience was gone.
* When Prince was 12, his mother kicked him out. He went to live with his father who was a very strict Seventh Day Adventist. A few years later, he caught a 14 year old Prince with a girl in his room and kicked him out. After that, he stayed with different friends, including his best friend André Cymone, whose parents let him sleep in the basement. André was later part of Prince's band and then Jody Watley's husband/producer.
* He continued having difficult relationships with his family members. His mother was not always in his life and when he became successful, she would ask him for money. He wanted to be close to his father, a former musician, who publicly took credit for Prince's success during interviews. Prince bought him a house and several cars and brought him to award shows in matching purple suits, but they became estranged again when his father demanded co-writing credit on some of his songs.
* In 1984 (shortly before Purple Rain was released), his girlfriend Jill Jones took a female friend with her to visit Prince at his hotel. Prince started kissing Jill's friend. Jill slapped him. In return, [sensitive content]he punched her repeatedly in the face. She wanted to press charges but his manager convinced her that it would ruin his career.
* Wendy and Lisa were members of Prince's band the Revolution and they collaborated closely with him on his Purple Rain album. He knew that Wendy and Lisa were a couple and he loved their relationship. Lisa said, "He was really intrigued by the freedom that we felt about ourselves. That gave him the strength to explore his own gender-bending sexuality." When he became romantically involved with Wendy's twin sister Susannah, he monitored her phone calls, discouraged her from leaving the house, and tried to keep her from seeing Wendy. In 2010, Wendy and Lisa received an Emmy for the Nurse Jackie theme song (they also composed the theme songs for Heroes, Carnivàle, Crossing Jordan, and Touch).
* When members of the Revolution tried to negotiate for higher pay, Prince said that if they really loved him then they wouldn't ask for more money.
* He had an alter ego named Camille who was inspired by a 19th century French intersex woman named Herculine Barbin.
* He met his future wife Mayte Garcia when she was 16 and he was 35. He invited her to join his latest band, the New Power Generation, and became her legal guardian. He told her that he idolized her virginity, and although she moved to Minnesota to be with him, they didn't have sex until she was 19.
* After their baby died, he informed her that Oprah was coming to the house that day to interview them as promotion for his new album. He told Mayte not to say that the baby had died.
* In the midst of his grief over their son's death, musician Larry Graham introduced Prince to the Jehovah's Witness religion.
* During his Piano and a Microphone tour, Prince would sometimes leave the stage to cry before returning to sing again.
* Many of the people interviewed for the documentary spoke about his decades-long dependence on pain medication, brought on by years of dancing in 4' heels. He quit and relapsed before his death.
* Jay-Z's 4:44 album contains lyrics about McMillan (the music lawyer who is part of Prince's estate):
I sat down with Prince, eye to eye
He told me his wishes before he died
Now Londell McMillan, he must be colorblind
They only see green from them purple eyes
Some of the changes that the estate wants:
* They want Edelman to reshoot footage of Paisley Park because they didn't like the way it looked in the documentary.
* During a scene about Prince's death, they want to remove the song "Let's Go Crazy" (it has lyrics about an elevator, which is where he died).
* Wendy stated during her interview that after Prince became religious, he called her about getting the band together but he wanted her to renounce her homosexuality as a condition of rejoining the band. The estate wants this removed.
* The documentary mentions that Prince's 2001 album The Rainbow Children was criticized for having antisemitic lyrics. The estate wants this removed.
* Some people have pointed out that documentaries about white male celebrities often neglect the negative aspects of their lives and focus on their ~genius (Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, and George Washington were mentioned as examples).
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