Michel'le Talks About Hanging With NWA, Dr. Dre's 'Apology,' and Surviving Compton
EntertainmentMichel’le’s Lifetime movie, Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge & Michel’le, received an unexpected publicity boost Sunday when news broke that mogul/producer/rapper Dr. Dre sent a cease and desist letter to Sony over his portrayal in the biopic, threatening to sue if the film aired. Surviving Compton is Michel’le’s answer of sorts to last year’s sanitized NWA biopic, Straight Outta Compton, which featured only a passing mention of Michel’le despite her frequent collaboration with the group’s members (including her star-making vocals on the World Class Wreckin’ Cru’s 1987 hit “Turn Off the Lights,” one of the earliest of Dr. Dre’s productions to receive airplay on a national scale). Surviving Compton chronicles Michel’le’s professional and personal relationship with Dre (he produced her biggest hits like “No More Lies” and “Something in My Heart,” and they have a child together, Marcel), as well as her relationship with Suge Knight. Multiple scenes portray Michel’le (Rhyon Nicole Brown) being abused physically and verbally by Dre (played by newcomer Curtis Hamilton), depicting allegations that Michel’le has been sharing with the press for well over a year now.
At the end of Surviving Compton, a title card reads, “Dr. Dre, through his attorney, denies abusing Michel’le and challenges her credibility.” This would seem to contradict Dre’s statement to the New York Times that apologized “to the women I’ve hurt,” which was released in 2015, days after interviews ran in which Michel’le and rapper Tairrie B described being physically assaulted by Dre, as well as in the wake of journalist/rapper Dee Barnes’s essay for Gawker, in which she wrote Dre beat her in a nightclub bathroom in 1991.I talked to Michel’le last week—before TMZ’s report of Dre’s lawsuit threat—and confirmed that his denial of abuse occurred after his New York Times apology. In response to an inquiry as to whether Michel’le was included in Dre’s summary of “women I’ve hurt,” his attorney, Howard E. King, sent Jezebel this statement:
I can assure you that Dre’s August 2015 apology for things he did decades ago was not in any way directed to Michel’le. Her false claims of being a victim arose for the first time more than 25 years after their relationship ended, coinciding with the success of Straight Outta Compton and her own efforts to sell a life story.
Lifetime had no comment when asked to respond to Dre’s lawsuit threat. Surviving Compton is scheduled to air Saturday at 8 p.m. A condensed and edited transcript of my chat with Michel’le is below
Jezebel: What do you think about this movie? Are you happy with how it turned out?
Michel’le: Well, I haven’t seen it in its entirety. I had to walk out of the screening. I couldn’t take it. It’s brutal, it’s kinda hard to watch. I’m sitting there with Rhyon Brown, the star, and I’m pinching her and grabbing her and leaning on her shoulder, but I wanted her to enjoy it so I removed myself.
It seems like a movie about abuse should be hard to watch. Did it feel accurate?
Yeah, but when I was in it—back 25 years ago—I couldn’t see myself. So to see myself was like oh my god. I couldn’t do it.
How did translating your experience to the screen work? Did Dianne Houston, the screenwriter, interview you at length?