Netflix’s Prince documentary has been axed by the late artist’s estate

[Karlston]

Though the documentary was completed, Prince’s estate was unhappy with the complicated portrait of the artist.

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Netflix definitely wanted to debut Ezra Edelman’s nine-hour-long documentary chronicling Prince’s life, but that won’t be happening thanks to the late singer’s estate.

 

Though Edelman’s untitled documentary was already completed, Netflix announced on Thursday that it has “come to a mutual agreement” with Prince’s estate to keep the film from being released. As part of the agreement, the estate also now has the ability to develop a documentary of its own “featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive.”

 

Along with the announcement Prince’s official X account posted a message stating “The Vault Has Been Freed” along with the quotes: “Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people,” and “The truth is, you’re either here to enlighten or discourage.”

 

Edelman, who won an Academy Award in 2016 for his documentary O.J.: Made in America, spent five years on his Prince project after Netflix signed a 2018 deal with Comerica Bank and Trust, the executors of Prince’s estate at the time. The original deal guaranteed that Prince’s estate would not try to exercise any editorial control over the film’s final version. But as The Guardian notes, things began to change in 2022 as the Netflix executive who brokered the deal exited the streamer, and Prince’s estate came under new ownership that did not like early cuts of the film.

 

Sources within Prince’s estate told Variety last July that parts of Edelman’s documentary were overly “sensationalized” and insufficiently fact-checked. It seems more likely that the estate didn’t like what the filmmaker found. Months later, a New York Times report about the film detailed how Edelman had interviewed a number of Prince’s former protégées / lovers — some of whom began dating the singer while they were underage — to paint a complicated picture of who he was:

They all appear in the film and give differing accounts of their experiences. Some, like Jill Jones, describe his cruelty and diminishment of them; others, like Electra and Fantastic, are still spellbound by their time with him and speak of how he buttressed their sense of self.

 

The women emerge as variously funny, appealing, appalled, victimized, knowing. We’re asked to sit with Prince’s multiplying paradoxes for many hours, allowing them to unsettle one another.

 

One of the most disturbing parts of the film depicts Prince’s relationship with Mayte Garcia, who became his wife. Now a striking, doe-eyed 50-year-old woman in a flowing silk shirt, she describes how she met Prince when she was 16 and he was 35, after he saw tapes of her belly dancing.

Currently, there’s no word on when or where Prince’s estate plans to release its new documentary.

 

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