Alexandra Shipp Tells Critics God Gave Her Aaliyah Movie Role
Alexandra Shipp has defended her decision to star in "Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B," by insisting God gave her the role of late singer Aaliyah Haughton.
Shipp, 23, starred as Aaliyah in the two-hour premiere on Lifetime Networks last Saturday. However, the television movie executive produced by Howard Braunstein, Debra Martin Chase and Wendy Williams, received its fair share of social media criticism.
Shipp took to her Instagram to defend herself against some of those who criticized her portrayal of the late singer.
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"At the end of the day I'm just a normal girl who got the opportunity of a lifetime and wouldn't let that go for anything or anyone. Because that's what dreams are: they're YOURS," Shipp wrote. "I'm following mine. I encourage and support EVERYONE in doing that for themselves."
She added, "because God put this role in my lap, I believe that, and I wasn't going to throw a gift like that away."
After Aaliyah's family publicly spoke out against the small screen film, actress Zendaya Coleman backed out of starring in it. Her replacement, Shipp, is an actress and singer who starred in Nickelodeon's show "House of Anubis" along with other programs such as "Victorious," "Switched At Birth" and "Awkward."
Shipp was forced to face the anger of fans of the late singer who believe she is not honoring Aaliyah's memory. Last summer, Shipp took to Twitter to ask God for help in the situation.
"God, blind me to negativity," she tweeted. "Give me strength to overcome the obstacles ahead and do what you put me on this planet to do: illuminate."
Still, executive producer Williams took to her talk show to make it clear that the film did experience some form of success already.
"Everybody's got an opinion! Whether you loved or hated [the film], you watched," Williams said on "The Wendy Williams" show Monday.
She made the announcement that the movie was the second highest-rated movie on all of cable this year.
Another one of the film's producers, Chase, also reacted to some people's negative opinions.
"Biopics are hard. People have an opinion and social media allows them to voice that opinion," she told The Washington Post. "But at the end of the day, our goal was to make the best movie possible."
