Sunday, June 29, 2014
Well I guess the young Disney Channel Star couldn’t take the heat. After petitions and racial remarks of Zendaya not being “black enough” for the role of Aaliyah, it seems she has officially given up the role.
Disney Channel star and singer Zendaya will not play Aaliyah in a Lifetime Television movie after all.
A rep for the 17-year-old actress told E! News exclusively on Sunday, June 29, that “Zendaya is no longer involved in the project.” Lifetime, which had announced her casting in the biopic on June 16, has not commented.
A source told E! News that there were production issues, including problems obtaining the rights to Aaliyah’s music. The R&B star and Queen of the Damned actress died at age 22 in a plane crash on Aug. 25, 2001.
“Aaliyah has always been an inspiration to Zendaya,” the source said. “She was honored to portray her and pay tribute to her. If she is going to do it, she wants to do it right.”
Lifetime had said that the tentative title of the movie was Aaliyah: Princess of R&B and that the biopic will be based off of Christopher Farley’s best-selling biography Aaliyah: More Than a Woman. The project was set to begin filming in the summer and air this fall.
Should Zendaya have given up her shot or did she do the right thing?
