Zendaya Reacts to Alex Shipp Being Cast as Aaliyah
Zendaya Coleman is reacting to the news that Alex Shipp is now taking over the role of the late singer Aaliyah after the former dropped out of the Lifetime film.
Shipp, 23, 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." While she is gearing up to star in Nick Cannon's "Drumline 2: A New Beat," talk show host Wendy Williams recently announced that she will executive produce an Aaliyah biopic where Shipp was recently cast as the star.
"I'm excited to exec produce the Aaliyah @lifetimetv movie w/ @DebraMChase. Prod starts later this month and @AlexShipppp will play Aaliyah," Williams tweeted.
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While Zendaya,17, backed out of portraying Aaliyah last month, she took to Instagram in a video clip that explained her reason for doing so.
"The reason why I chose not to do the Aaliyah movie had nothing to do with the haters or people telling me that I couldn't do it, I wasn't talented enough, or I wasn't black enough," she said on Instagram. "The main reason is that the production value wasn't there, there were complications with the music rights, and I just felt like it wasn't being handled delicately considering the situation."
Zendaya also had an issue trying to reach Aaliyah's family who has publicly spoken out about the television film being made.
"And I tried my best to reach out to the family on my own, and I wrote a letter, but I was unable to do so; therefore, I felt not really morally OK with moving forward with the project," she said.
Still, Zendaya had a message for Shipp who will take over the role of the late singer who died over 12 years ago in a plane crash at the age of 22.
"With all that being said, congratulations to the new woman playing Aaliyah; I only hope she does not have to deal with half the hate that I had to deal with," Zendaya said. "And remember that we are all human beings trying to do what we love to do. Let's practice motivation and love; not discrimination and hate. All right?"
