It’s been about five years since news first broke that there would be a movie about the life of late R&B singer Aaliyah Haughton. The actress/dancer/singer first thought to play the role was Destiny Lightsy previously featured in You Got Served, Fat Albert, Rize, and various music videos for Christina Aguilera and Chris Brown. Pictures of Lightsy in styles made famous by Aaliyah surfaced, later revealed to be audition snapshots.
Another actress in consideration for the role is Meagan Good. In an April 2011 interview with FreddyO.com, Good states, “It’s something that I really wanna do. I’ve spoken with some of her family and…from my understanding, it’s not something [they] plan on doing any time soon. It’s still a very delicate subject for the family…”
But the role is reported to have been filled by director Bill Condon (director behind Dreamgirls), who chose 23-year old Keshia Chante, Canadian-born R&B singer and former girlfriend of rapper Drake. Chante’s ability to sing and dance and her uncanny resemblance to Aaliyah seem like a match. The film has an impressive $80 million budget and a legion of hungry fans who are awaiting more information on the project.
Recently in February of this year, Keshia Chante opened up about the progress of the movie production in an interview with Chris Yandek at CYInterview.com:
“And from my understanding, there are people trying to create a movie and Aaliyah’s family are still mourning her loss and aren’t ready to share her story and create a film. So there’s a bit of back and forth thing with her family and with creative people. And I know that they would bless a movie being created, they’re just not 100 percent comfortable and unfortunately from my understanding they don’t have complete control of her estate. So a movie could technically be made without them green lighting it and I kind of think that’s unfortunate. So I want her family to be on board and to be happy with it. It’s still kind of lingering in the air.”
Ms.Chante goes on to explain even further why the production has stalled:
“And for me, I’ve always wanted to kind of talk about it, it’s just really, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to disrespect her family. I know that they’re, they don’t like it. They don’t like when they get calls from people, like, ‘Oh, I heard this about your daughter. I heard this.’ Because it’s painful for them. So I know that the lawyer and even them and even my team who have kind of like you know, it’s happy, it’s better for everyone to not really speak on it and I’m just feel like you know, I’m not supposed to speak on it, but I know in this situation, yeah, it’ kind of, it’s a long time coming and I know people really want to know what’s going on. So yeah, I definitely think this was the perfect time to tell you.”
Check out the rest of the interview here.
