Controversial Prince documentary cancelled over estate dispute

A Netflix documentary series about Prince by an Oscar-winning filmmaker has been cancelled after the late singer’s estate blocked its release. 

The completed, but untitled, series by Ezra Edelman was delayed in 2024 after representatives for Prince’s estate viewed a cut and claimed it had factual errors and that it sensationalized parts of the singer’s life, according to Variety. 

Netflix and the estate said Friday the project has been scrapped, under an agreement that will see the latter “develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive,” according to a joint statement. 

The estate also released a short video on X showing photos of Prince as his music played. The video included the caption: “The Vault Has Been Freed,” an apparent reference to Prince’s personal archive of recordings.

Edelman previously made 2016’s O.J.: Made in America, an eight-hour deep dive which won an Academy Award and widespread acclaim for its unflinching, complex look at the life and criminal trial of O.J. Simpson.

Edelman reportedly spent nearly five years on the Prince project, which included interviews with many of the star’s former collaborators, assistants, friends, managers, family members and partners — including several girlfriends who accused the rock star of physical and emotional abuse, according to a September report in the New York Times.

One girlfriend who also worked with Prince as a member of his band in the 1980s, Jill Jones, alleged he had once punched her in the face repeatedly after she slapped him. 

The documentary also delved into Prince’s abusive childhood and complicated layers of his personal life, as well as the musical icon’s intricate music and persona. The final edit is reportedly nine hours long. 

Prince died in 2016 of an accidental fentanyl overdose, leaving his estate to be split between six siblings — touching off a prolonged legal battle which may have contributed to the estate’s ambivalence about the documentary. It was reportedly approved when the estate was still being managed by a bank. 

“False and unsubstantiated rumors, hate and vengeance more than showing the brilliance & MUSIC will NOT be the focus of a ‘definitive’ doc on Prince!” L. Londell McMillan, a lawyer who helps manage one of the companies in charge of the estate, said Friday on X. 

It was a repost of remarks he originally made last fall, as fans first began to discuss the alleged content of the documentary in the wake of the Times article.  

Following the news that it had been cancelled, and would be replaced by a documentary crafted with Prince’s estate, fan reaction has been split — some saying they are not interested in what they assume will be a censored, sugarcoated look at his life. Others praised the estate for protecting Prince’s image. 

Representatives for Creative Artists Agency, which represents Edelman, did not respond to CBC News’s request for comment. Edelman has not commented about the project’s cancellation or controversy.

But in December, on the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out, Edelman spoke generally about the state of the documentary film industry, criticizing the increase of documentaries made under the supervision of their subjects. 

“The type of documentaries that are more popular and more prevalent are increasingly things that are shown by streamers that are sometimes about famous people, artists, singers, whomever… bordering a little bit on branded content because they’re done in connection with the subjects themselves, who often are producers,” he said.

“The idea of documentary-filmmaking as journalism is being sort of pushed by the wayside a little bit.”

He said he believes there is “less of an emphasis on art,” in mainstream documentaries right now. 

“If the subject has any creative control, I have a problem.”