Aretha Franklin’s Family Spoken Out Against The New Genius Biopic Series

Aretha Franklin’s family says they are against the new Genius biopic series and they “do not support” it. They mentioned it as “common, decent respect”

It is heard that Cynthia Erivo will play the late soul singer in the series. The whole series will be depicting the star which is not appreciated by Aretha Franklin’s family.

National Geographic is going to produce this series. It has been premiered in the US on March 21. Franklin’s granddaughter Grace recently posted a video on TikTok. She discussed the show and her family’s feelings about it. She 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 an accurate depiction of anyone’s life without speaking to the ones closest to them.”

She also stated, “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 that we will not be worked with. 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.”

Franklin’s son and Grace’s father Kecalf has also spoken out about Genius. He said, “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.”

Kecalf also explained, “This is about common, decent respect for our family,” he said. “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.”

However, National Geographic’s spokesperson said about this series, “to honour and celebrate the life and legacy of Aretha Franklin”.